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MOBILISING AMERICA 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

KEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



Mobilising America 



BY 
ARTHUR BULLARD 

Author of 
'•The Diplomacy of the Great War," etc. 



Stem fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1917 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1917 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Published, April, 1917. 



APR -5 1917 



©CI.A460171 



PREFACE 

No American who has lived in France 
or England, as I have these last two 
years, and has watched them struggling 
with the problem of organising democ- 
racy to resist the impact of war, could 
help feeling at every minute that some 
time we might have to meet the same 
problems. Day after day experiments 
were being made, some successful, some 
failures, the lessons of which would be of 
value to us if ever we had to mobilise. 
And so — anticipating plenty of time to 
mature my notes — I set to work gath- 
ering the preliminary data for a book on 
" How Democracies Mobilise." It prom- 
ised to be a bulky tome, there was so 
much which seemed noteworthy. 

But War is already upon us. And so 
I have tried to summarise in this short 
space the main points I had intended to 
develop at length. 



PREFACE 

It would be quite impossible to list 
even the bare names of all those in 
France and England to whom I am in- 
debted for advice, suggestion and criti- 
cism. Whatever clear thinking there is 
in the book is the fruit of much discus- 
sion with people who were in a position 
to know more than I of the various 
phases of the problem. 

This is especially true of the section 
dealing with the Censorship and Public- 
ity. More than a year ago I wrote a 
long chapter on the subject. It has been 
through the hands of many friends: fel- 
low journalists, British and French poli- 
ticians and a large number of army men. 

In the same way my proposals in re- 
gard to the mobilisation of labor indus- 
try result not only from my own observa- 
tions but also from those of many others. 
The scheme I suggest has met the ap- 
proval of a number of Labor men here 
and abroad. It is, I believe, very near 
what the English would do, if they had 
to do it all over again. 



PREFACE 

Many of these subjects are highly con- 
troversial. There is room for wide and 
sincere difference of opinion. But I 
have found general agreement about 
them among those men, intimately famil- 
iar with the problems, who put the effi- 
cient conduct of war before every other 
consideration. 

That is my point of departure. I am 
not considering the ethics of war, nor the 
advisability of our participation in the 
present struggle. I accept the fact that 
we have decided to fight and I try to 
show how the experiences of other de- 
mocracies can teach us the way to do it 
efficiently. 

Arthur Bullard. 
New York City, > 

26 March, 1917. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I America Goes to War . . ». 1 

II Democracies as Fighting Ma- 
chines 11 

III The Mobilisation of Public 

Opinion 26 

IV The Mobilisation of Industry . 64 
V The Mobilisation of Men . . 98 

VI A Programme . . . • • .120 



MOBILISING 

CHAPTER I 

AMERICA GOES TO WAR 

OUR Naval gunners are ordered to 
fire at German Submarines on 
sight. The Germans sink our ships with- 
out warning. Whatever the diplomats 
may like to call it, this is War. 

And we do not know how to fight. 

There is no possible gain and every 
chance of disaster in minimising the 
amount we have to learn. We have no 
American general who ever commanded 
an Army Corps, not one of our Naval 
Officers ever fought against a Dread- 
naught, none of our Artillery men ever 
fired a real shot at an enemy aircraft. 

Digging the Panama Canal has trained 
some of our soldiers in peace-time engi- 
1 



2 MOBILISING 

neering. It has given us men like Goe- 
thals, who know how to handle and feed 
large bodies of men. His assistants have 
had practice in honest buying and manu- 
facturing, which will be of great value 
in organising our munition industries. 
For this we should be thankful. But 
when it comes to fighting — large-scale, 
modern warfare — we have no experience 
at all. 

We must learn. And the speed with 
which we reach proficiency will depend 
very largely on how quick and ready we 
are to profit by the experiences of the 
European democracies under the same 
strain. For France and Britain are like 
us. They also had to learn. 



The war is upon us and we all — 
individually in the privacy of our own 
hearts, collectively as a nation — must 
decide what we are going to do about it. 
Is " soldiering " going to mean limp lazi- 
ness as it did in our slang of yesterday ? 



WE GO TO WAR 3 

Or are we going to restore its true and 
more virile meaning? 

We will do as little in this struggle with 
Germany — and do it as badly — as we 
did against Spain, if we are listless. We 
can do a great deal more — and infinitely 
more efficiently — if we set our hearts to 
it. 



The possibilities we must face may be 
grouped under three heads — the two ex- 
tremes and the more probable, far-from- 
happy, medium. 

First. The submarine blockade of the 
British Isles may prove as ineffectual as 
the Zeppelin raids and the European En- 
tente may be victorious in the field this 
summer. Few think they will win so 
quickly by force of arms alone. But 
they will be helped somewhat in their 
warfare by the economic distress of the 
Teutons. There are also signs and por- 
tents which may mean serious trouble be- 
tween Germany and her Allies and this 



4 MOBILISING 

too may hasten the victory of our 
friends. The Revolution in Russia may 
spread. Perhaps Turkey or Bulgaria, 
Hungary or Austria may collapse. And 
the Entente will also be helped by our 
financial, industrial and food reserves. 
Perhaps the war will be over by mid-sum- 
mer. 

If luck breaks for us in this way, it 
does not matter much what we do. 

Second. At the other extreme, the 
Submarines may prove effective. As a 
matter of fact, we know very little about 
it. Both sides are optimistic. Not un- 
til several months have passed, not till we 
can observe results, will we have any 
certainty. We are not sure that the 
Germans have yet done their worst. 
There is a chance that in spite of any 
help we can bear, they may succeed in 
starving England. 

It is impossible to picture all it would 
mean to us if Britain were forced to give 
in. But one thing is sure. We have 
already cast in our lot against the Cen- 



WE GO TO WAR 5 

tral Empires. We have crossed that 
Rubicon. We are not liked by the Ger- 
mans, and if they starve England we will 
have to sign a treaty of abject surrender 
or fight to the extreme limit of our 
power. We could rally the wrecks of 
Britain, Canada, Australasia — perhaps 
South Africa. We might get some help 
from the Latin American Republics. If 
Japan kept up the fight we could hold 
the Pacific. But we would need every 
ounce of energy in our last citizen, if we 
were to show ourselves again across the 
Atlantic. 

This is, I think, the least probable of 
the possibilities before us. But still it 
is there. War — as Sherman said — is 
not a pretty game. 

Third. The middle and by far the 
most probable possibility is that the war 
will outlast this summer. The Subma- 
rines may prove as indecisive as the Zep- 
pelins and the Spring Offensive of the 
Entente equally indecisive. Next Sep- 
tember we may find the Map of the War 



6 MOBILISING 

very little changed, the Germans driven 
back a few score miles in the west, their 
line somewhat advanced in Russia, the 
Balkans or in Italy — the deadlock still 
unbroken. If the next harvest in Ger- 
many and Austria comes up to the ex- 
pectations of many impartial observers, 
and the Mittel Europa Alliance holds to- 
gether, there is no reason to be sure that 
the European Entente will win in 1917. 

France has already borne a tremen- 
dous strain. For two and a half years 
she has poured out her blood without 
stint ; holding the enemy, as Horatius did 
of old, till help could be mustered. And 
she will go into this summer's campaign 
just as debonair, just as generous, just 
as unstinting as last year — which means 
that no matter how the tide of battle 
turns, a great many Frenchmen are go- 
ing to die this summer. And if peace is 
not won by fall there will be need of more 
from us than money and munitions. 
There will be urgent need of men - — our 
men. 



WE GO TO WAR 7 

And if we are to exercise the greatest 
possible pressure on the enemy in 1918, 
we must begin organising our forces at 
once. If we wait till the need is obvious, 
we will be late at roll-call. 

Next Christmas, if the war is still in 
progress, there will be talk of peace, just 
as there was this winter. And the minis- 
ters of the Kaiser will base their terms 
on what they consider to be the actual 
strength of their enemies. They like to 
call themselves " realists " and they do 
their best to deserve that term. In 
1914 they were not at all frightened by 
the thought that Britain might develop 
an Army. In the fall of 1917 they will 
not be much influenced by the fact that we 
have a population of a hundred million, 
or that we have passed a Universal Serv- 
ice Bill which will give us a great army 
five or ten years hence, when we have 
trained up officers for it. But if their 
spies tell them that we have drilled and 
equipped a large Army and have built 
the transports to carry them, they will be 



8 MOBILISING 

impressed. It may even be the decisive 
consideration which will end the War. 

So the question of whether or not this 
horror of bloodshed shall continue into 
1918 may very well hinge on whether we 
get busy now or six months hence. 



The best informed men in Europe are 
guessing on the duration of the war. 
Some are optimists and do not expect an- 
other winter in the trenches. But look 
up the betting at Lloyd's in London. 
They are used to assessing risks. And 
you will find that although the odds on 
the termination of the war in 1917 vary 
from day to day, they seldom reach even 
money. If we took such risks in busi- 
ness there would not be an insurance com- 
pany in existence. Remember " the 
Spring Drive " of 1915, remember " the 
Big Push " of last summer, and how little 
they accomplished. Is it wise for us to 
bet everything on this year's offensive? 
If Germany is not defeated by the next 



WE GO TO WAR 9 

snow-fall, we will need an Army. Ought 
we to stake our honor on such a chance? 

And — quite irrespective of the bet- 
ting odds — is it good policy for us to 
sit idle in safety, taking profits but not 
risks, while our friends in Europe fight 
our battles? Is it wise policy, from the 
point of view of those of us who abhor 
militarism, to show a reluctance to fight 



nowr 



There are, I take it, three kinds ©f 
people. Conscientious objectors, who 
will not fight. Jingoes, who say they 
want to fight. And the rest of us, pa- 
cific people who do not like to fight. 

We did our best to keep out of the 
conflict. Tolstoi himself could hardly 
accuse us of wanting to fight. About the 
worst he could say would be that perhaps 
if the Archangel Gabriel had been Presi- 
dent, he might have arranged things. 
But none of the Archangels were candi- 
dates. The rest of us, who are not be- 



10 MOBILISING 

lievers in passive resistance, feel that Mr. 
Wilson did all a mere man could to keep 
the peace. A strong and outspoken mi- 
nority believe he did too much. 

We have patiently — and abundantly 
— shown that it is hard to make us lose 
our temper. And now, unless we want to 
be trampled under foot, we must show 
that it does not pay to force us to fight. 

We must raise an Expeditionary 
Army of a Half Million as quickly as pos- 
sible — more quickly than has ever been 
done before. 

We, who love peace, ought to keep out 
of war as long as possible and when we 
are forced to go in — go in hard ! 

And we will be running inexcusable 
risk, if we forget for a moment that we 
may need the men. 



CHAPTER II 

DEMOCRACIES AS FIGHTING MACHINES 

HERE is no reason for us to be 
ashamed that we do not know how 
to fight. Free peoples never are pre- 
pared for war. ) 

The last great struggle between de- 
mocracies was our Civil War. And it 
was well on into the third year before 
either side really settled down to it. 
Lincoln's " expert " military advisers did 
not think it would last long, so they be- 
gan by asking for ninety-day volunteers. 
Since then there have been no wars waged 
by democracies except the Anglo-Boer 
struggle and our conflict with Spain. 
In neither of these cases did popular 
government gain any military laurels. 
Overwhelming resources were used with 
wanton wastefulness. And so the tradi- 
11 



12 MOBILISING 

tion arose that democracies cannot fight. 

Suddenly in 1914 the two great de- 
mocracies of Europe were faced by what 
the Germans call Absolute War. There 
was no meeting the danger half-way. It 
was do or die. It was bring up every 
ounce of energy or go under. 

France was much better prepared than 
Britain. But if we rank German pre- 
paredness at 100 per cent., France was 
little more than half ready. This seems 
to be an inevitable condition of those who 
would be free. Militarism is essentially 
oligarchic. The Liberals the world over 
are primarily interested in improving 
conditions at home. Where the people 
rule, the emphasis is put on internal 
affairs to the neglect of foreign rela- 
tions. 

So War, Absolute War, caught Brit- 
ain and France by surprise. It was 
necessary to improvise a new national 
frame of mind. To be sure the older 
Frenchmen remembered 1870, and all the 
present generation had grown up under 



DEMOCRACY 13 

the menace of a new invasion. But 
"Wolf! Wolf!" had been called so 
often. Public opinion was unprepared. 
The people had to forget their habitual 
hobbies, their personal interests and get 
together. In France they called the new 
spirit V Union sacree. The British, at 
first, were content with a " Party 
Truce." 

There was no political machinery 
to meet the crisis. Statesmen, who had 
scarcely thought of danger, found them- 
selves faced with the duties of a Com- 
mittee of Public Safety. Deputies and 
Members of Parliament, who had been 
elected in times of peace because of their 
views on Old Age Pensions and Tariff 
Schedules, had to decide questions of war 
polity for which they had no training. 

Our imagination has been caught by 
some of the more picturesque extempo- 
risations of the soldiers. The Army be- 
hind Paris being hurled at Von Kluck's 
flank — in taxi-cabs. Auto-busses, fresh 
from the London streets — their theater 



14 MOBILISING 

posters intact — rushing food up to the 
British front. But all the changing 
ministries, Coalition Governments, War 
Cabinets, etc., were at first no less clumsy 
extemporisations of political machinery. 
And even after two years and more, no 
satisfactory solution of the parliamen- 
tary problem has been found. 

Preparedness, however, is only rela- 
tive. Even the Germans, docile and dis- 
ciplined, were not sufficiently prepared. 
They tried to be. They thought they 
were. But they were not — not quite. 
For to be really prepared it is necessary 
to understand your enemies, and Ger- 
many's programme was marred by one 
great miscalculation — Britain. They 
love to call themselves " realists," but 
they took account only of " actualities," 
paying no heed to potential power. The 
possibility of the British becoming effi- 
cient soldiers was beyond the range of 
their imagination. 

The British contribution to this strug- 
gle may be judged from two points of 



DEMOCRACY 15 

view. You may base your critique on 
what sober judgment in 1914 thought 
Britain could do. Or you may compare 
their accomplishments with what some of 
their misguided spokesmen have said they 
were doing or would do. 

It is rather easy wit to work the 
" deadly parallel " between what Sir 
Edward Grey said Britain would do in 
defence of Servia and the unhappy fate of 
the Serbs. It is rather hard not to jibe 
when some over-enthusiastic Britisher 
talks about how " we saved Paris " or 
claims that the Battles of Ypres were 
" the greatest of history." 

But of course the only sound point of 
view for estimating the British effort is 
to compare what they have done with 
what their friends and enemies expected 
them to do. It is imposing. The Ger- 
mans thought the English Army was neg- 
ligible, but to-day their land forces are 
as great a factor in the war as their 
Navy. 

Free nations may be slow to start, 



16 MOBILISING 

wasteful and inefficient by nature. They 
are normally pacific and never regard 
war as the chief end of man. But 
France and Britain have proved that de- 
mocracies can conquer themselves, they 
can triumph over their weaknesses. No 
one can ever say again that democracies 
cannot fight. ^ 



There are endless lessons for us in the 
experiences of France and Britain. For 
nearly three years they have been strug- 
gling with the same problems we now have 
to face. They have had some stupendous 
successes, and have made some monu- 
mental blunders. In their adventures 
and misadventures we will find the sign- 
posts towards safety, and also the dan- 
ger signals, on the road before us. 



The first and most outstanding polit- 
ical lesson of this war is that in times of 
crisis, democracies will trust their gov- 



DEMOCRACY 17 

ernments and will be lavish with money 
and men and effort in their defence. 
Imperial Germany, where " duty to the 
state " has been taught for a generation 
while liberty-loving nations were empha- 
sising " the Rights of Man and Citizen," 
has not secured greater sacrifices from 
its people than Republican France and 
Liberal Britain. 

The Lesson of Europe is explicit in 
this matter. And it should be of great 
comfort to Mr. Wilson and his advisers. 
No request from the democratic govern- 
ments has been refused by the people. 

There is only one qualification. The 
Call must be clear. 

This point was illustrated by the long- 
drawn-out and distressing controversy 
in England over conscription. Parlia- 
ment never refused to vote any measure 
demanded by the Ministry, and the peo- 
ple never resisted any sacrifice called for 
by Parliament. The unrest was caused 
by lack of clarity. If Kitchener had 
calmly said that Universal Service was 



18 MOBILISING 

necessary the nation would have con- 
sented at any time. But he made no 
such definite statement. Was it a ser- 
ious demand of the General Staff or did 
the Tories consider agitation on the sub- 
ject good tactics to drive the Liberals 
from power ? Such mystification still ex- 
ists. Very many people in England have 
told me that they are uncertain whether 
the final passage of the Conscription Bill 
was based on military necessity or party 
expediency, whether its advocates were 
attacking the Kaiser or Mr. Asquith. 

It has been quite the same in France. 
No sacrifice which was clearly asked for 
has been refused. But the people have 
been deeply suspicious of partisan in- 
trigue during the war. They say to the 
politicians : " Tell us clearly what you 
need to win. We, who are ready to for- 
get our personal interests and give our 
lives in defence of our country, ask you 
to sacrifice your passion for getting or 
keeping your party in power." 

This is the great heartening lesson for 



DEMOCRACY 19 

us. The citizens of democratic countries 
stand ready for any sacrifice to defend 
their political faith. Our Administra- 
tion can get from us anything it really 
needs. We are not more craven than 
the peoples of France and Britain. Let 
the need be made evident and we will meet 
it. 



There are two errors into which 
France and Britain fell at first and from 
which they have only slowly recovered. 
It would be well for us to avoid them. 

The first and most pernicious was 
" The Short War Fallacy." No one ex- 
pected the struggle to last many months. 
Every one thought Kitchener was bluff- 
ing when he said, " Three years." And 
so at first every proposal which would 
take more than a few months to mature 
was rejected. Those who tried to be 
far-sighted were laughed down. 

France, as much as Britain, was a vic- 
tim of this Short War Fallacy. There 



20 MOBILISING 

has of late been hot criticism of Joffre 
for not having built a railroad to Ver- 
dun. For although the motor trucks 
managed to save the city, the lack of bet- 
ter communications cost France thou- 
sands of lives. But it takes time to 
build a railroad and nobody thought the 
war would last as long. 

Very early in 1915 it became evident 
that the volunteer system in England was 
missing many men who might well go and 
was taking in their stead irreplaceable 
workers from the mines and factories. 
It w r as obvious that a military and in- 
dustrial census was desirable. But it 
was postponed and postponed because it 
would take time and no one thought 
there would be time enough. At last, 
when the need was pressing, the work 
was done by amateurs, hurriedly and in- 
accurately. 

The French thought the war would be 
over so quickly that there would be no 
time to manufacture munitions, so they 
rushed too many men into uniform and 



DEMOCRACY 21 

let the factory fires go out. For two 
years they were sending men back from 
the front to resuscitate their industries. 
In a hundred and one ways — in their 
efforts to reorganise their political ma- 
chinery to meet the crisis, in their fiscal 
arrangements, in their diplomacy, and 
even in their strategy — France and 
Britain were handicapped by this Short 
War Fallacy. 



The second great constant source of 
trouble, noticeable all through the strug- 
gle to get France and Britain fully mo- 
bilised, has been the difficulty in finding a 
formula to differentiate temporary emer- 
gency proposals from permanent meas- 
ures. 

Everywhere individuals and parties 
have attempted to use the war as a pre- 
text to fasten permanently on the nation 
measures in which they were interested. 
Prohibitionists in France and England 
have tried to utilise this crisis to put 



22 MOBILISING 

through their reforms ; but the liquor in- 
terests, fearing permanent interference 
with their profits, have successfully re* 
sisted. As an emergency measure — 
for the duration of the war — it might 
have been accepted. 

In the financing of the war, the Eng- 
lish have been more adroit in this regard 
than the French. They have enacted ex- 
ceedingly heavy war taxes, under which 
many people in England are paying more 
than a quarter of their income. But 
there has been little opposition, for few 
people of wealth are so selfish as to fight 
against emergency taxes in times of cri- 
sis. The French Cliambre des Deputes, 
however, was already discussing an in- 
come tax law before hostilities broke out. 
Its partisans tried to use the war as a 
pretext to force it through as a perma- 
nent fiscal reform. As a result all the 
peace-time opponents of the bill resisted 
fiercely and an unnecessary strain was 
put on the " Union sacree." 

But on the other hand, in their efforts 



DEMOCRACY 23 

to reorganise their political practice, the 
British have had more trouble than the 
French. The Members of Parliament at 
Westminster have not made it clear that 
their attempts to adapt the governmen- 
tal machinery to this temporary emer- 
gency of war are not permanent assaults 
on democracy. The present govern- 
ment of France is more of a dictatorship 
than that of Britain. But one hears 
frightened cries of " Dictatorship " 
more often from English Liberals than 
from the French Republicans. In the 
last Cabinet Reorganisation in France 
the Chambre gave the Ministry power to 
make laws, without consulting them, by 
executive edict. And the French people 
have not only readily consented to this 
radical centralisation of power but have 
actively demanded it. Why? Because 
it is so obviously a temporary arrange- 
ment. 

Everywhere — in finance, in political 
organisation and in industrial intensi- 
fication — mobilisation has been greatly 



24* MOBILISING 

facilitated by assurances that emergency 
war measures are only temporary. 



There is for us one other general les- 
son in this spectacle of the mustering of 
Europe. Back of all the outward, ma- 
terial mobilisation there must be an in- 
ward, spiritual mobilisation. 

In modern war, if there is anything 
like equality in population and resources, 
that nation, the greatest proportion of 
whose citizens feel that victory is more 
important than their private affairs, will 
win. The " Business as usual " frame 
of mind is the absolute anti-thesis of ef- 
fective mobilisation. The Res Publica 
must come before individual gain. The 
more people, who realise that we are at 
war, who are disturbed by it, the more 
hearty will be the unanimity we will have 
in support of an energetic policy which 
will bring hostilities to a speedy end. 
Every citizen of the Republic who is in- 
different to the war is dead weight. And 



DEMOCRACY 25 

those who win profit from it are more 
dangerous than enemy soldiers. 

Here again we have the example of 
Britain. As her interest grew, as more 
and more of her people felt the war, her 
power grew. 

First, last and all the time, the ef- 
fectiveness of our warfare will depend on 
the amount of ardor we throw into it. 
So the prime duty of our Government, 
the first step in any mobilisation, must be 
the awakening of our interest. There 
must be some loud, clear Call to Arms, 
which will electrify Public Opinion. 



CHAPTER III 

THE MOBILISATION OF PUBLIC OPINION 

THE Tocsin must ring clear. 
Mobilisation is an act, not an 
accident. It is not something which will 
happen to us, it is something we must do. 
And unless we hold the fact firm in our 
minds that war is something which con- 
cerns every one of us we will make a dis- 
graceful muddle of it. Nobody knows 
how much of our strength we will need 
to put forth, but the first step must be 
an act of will. We must want to mo- 
bilise. 

The Lesson of Europe is precise on 
this point — a democratic Government 
can stimulate this mobilising frame of 
mind. There are many agencies, many 
methods, which it can use to arouse the 
nation. 

26 



PUBLIC OPINION 27 

First of all, the Government must dis- 
pel all uncertainty by an honest state- 
ment of why we are forced to fight, of 
what sacrifices it expects of us and the 
goal for which Ave strive. 

The British responded less quickly 
than the French, and the fact that 
France was actually invaded does not 
account for all the difference. In Brit- 
ain the Call to Arms was not clear. In- 
stead of being incited to extraordinary 
effort, the people were lulled into indif- 
ference. " Business as usual," was set 
before the Nation as a patriotic motto, 
and the people who accepted this advice 
and went about their usual business were 
not helping in mobilisation. It was only 
gradually, as this attitude was aban- 
doned, that the force of Britain grew. 

Their government never would have 
given the people this wrong lead if they 
had not been victims of The Short War 
Fallacy. No enlightened government 
will ever repeat that mistake. It is im- 
possible to foretell how long hostilities 



28 MOBILISING 

will last. " Business as usual " means 
delay in getting started. It must be the 
first duty of our Government to stir us 
into a realisation of what it means to 
fight. 

An explicit statement of war aims is 
especially necessary for a nation of 
mixed population like ours. The Call of 
Race is not strong with us and, to those 
who hear it, its message is contradictory. 
We cannot expect our people of German 
blood to fight enthusiastically for 
Britain. We cannot expect our large 
Jewish population to be pro-Tsar. But 
all of us are pro-Liberal. 

That must be the key-note of any 
war we are to wage effectively. The 
ideal of democratic liberty will rally 
more of us than any issue between one 
nation and another. The republican 
revolution in Russia and the struggle of 
the new government to get a start in the 
face of the armed menace of Prussian 



PUBLIC OPINION 29 

Autocracy has already made a tremen- 
dous appeal to our people. If we are to 
fight worthily it must be for some object 
which we hold to passionately. All good 
wars have been Crusades. 

If we arc to abandon our isolation 
and go crusading in the cause of 
Democratic Righteousness abroad — and 
events have decided that matter for us 
— we have, in the President's Address 
to the Senate in regard to the organisa- 
tion of the world for peace, an ideal plat- 
form. 

Not only in its words but in its spirit 
and its occasion it expressed us as a 
nation. We were very reluctant to in- 
tervene in a purely European contro- 
versy. In the chaos of conflicting ac- 
cusations it was hard for many of us to 
take sides as between the two groups of 
belligerents. We tried to hold to an 
aloof Neutrality, protecting only our own 
rights and the general principle of In- 
ternational Law. The thought of fights 



1/ 



30 MOBILISING 

ing over a technicality was repugnant to 
us — although, God knows, we were af- 
fronted often enough by both sides. 

But gradually the realisation grew 
that — willy nilly — we were in the war, 
that every action or inaction of ours in- 
fluenced the fate of Europe. Each side 
appealed to us to enforce our just claims 
against the other. Should we continue 
to stay out ? We were already in ! Our 
official Neutrality was only a make-shift 
« — giving us the opportunity to be delib- 
erate. The question before us ceased to 
be : " Shall we go in ? " and became 
" When and in what manner shall we ad- 
mit that we are in? " 

And side by side with this gradual 
change in our understanding of the situ- 
ation, this slow forming realisation that 
any statement of aloofness was a pre- 
tence, there grew in our minds the con- 
viction that it was a conflict not only be- 
tween nations, not only between groups 
of statesmen, but a more fundamental, 
less easily definable clash between ideas. 



PUBLIC OPINION 31 

Such struggles are always confused by 
side issues, and bleared by misstatements, 
but as the months passed the main issue 
began to clarify. European, American 
and Asiatic politics are now merged into 
world politics, and the world in which we 
live cannot exist half-slave, half-free. 
Napoleon said that within a century 
Europe would be either Republican or 
Cossack. The symbol of tyranny has 
changed in these hundred years. De- 
mocracy to-day does not fear the wild 
Cossacks of the steppes — they are fight- 
ing on our side — but the Prussian drill 
sergeant. It is the struggle which Na- 
poleon foresaw. Whether the Tsar or 
the Sultan shall pray in Santa Sophia is 
of small concern to us. But we have no 
greater concern than to see to it that de- 
mocracy does not perish from the earth. 
The quarrel between Austria and 
Servia has become ancient history. The 
controversy over who first broke the law 
of the sea now seems academic. Whether 
this or that diplomatic move of for- 



32 MOBILISING 

mcr Ministers of Foreign Affairs was 
wise seems of small moment. Whatever 
the " causes " of the war, an issue has 
grown up out of the struggle itself. It 
is an issue on which we, as Americans, 
can take sides — an issue which we can 
not, without treason to our own ideals, 
avoid. It is the conflict between the 
forces of reaction and the impulse to- 
wards liberation. 

With great adroitness, Mr. Wilson, 
in his request for peace terms, his Ad- 
dress to the Senate, and at his Inaugura- 
tion, has helped to clarify the issue. 

Gradually — too gradually for some 
of us who were impatient — the Presi- 
dent has led the nation to unanimity on 
this platform that not only national 
government, but the governance of the 
world, must rest on the consent of the 
governed. We draw the sword neither 
in resentment against violations of our 
rights, nor in defiance at insults, but to 
assert our solidarity with all those who 
would be free. 



PUBLIC OPINION 33 

Mr. Wilson has not only unified our 
own public opinion by his discourses on 
the basis of peace. His words also have 
been heard abroad. They have been 
welcomed by the Liberals of Europe as 
a new and more inspiring statement of 
their faith. The freemen of Russia have 
responded. His statement of our na- 
tional ideals has helped to clarify not 
only our own ideas but also those of our 
comrades in arms. 

I have been told by people who call 
themselves " realists " that Perpetual 
Peace is irrealisable, that Mr. Wilson's 
ideal is a dream. 

A dream? So was the Declaration of 
Independence. So was " Liberte, 
Egalite, Fraternite." Nothing better 
to fight for has ever been invented than 
dreams. 

The French raise their levee en masse 
to the cry " La Patrie en dangeur" 
We have a broader, more inspiring war 
cry, " Democracy — the Hope of Hu- 
manity ! — is in danger ! " 



34 MOBILISING 

You may call such idealism " senti- 
mental," if you will. But in this sense 
Democracy is sentimental. There is no 
clearer lesson from this European con- 
flict. Some crafty Englishmen see the 
conquest of Mesopotamia and its vast po- 
tential wealth as the prize to struggle 
for. Some believe and argue and write 
that the Balance of Power in the Near 
East is the main issue. Some French- 
men, like Maurice Barres, want to annex 
the Rhine provinces of Germany; some 
are interested in the Protectorate over 
Syria. Some Russians saw in the war a 
reaffirmation of Autocracy. But such 
men do not volunteer. It was the Eng- 
lishmen who believed in a duty to Bel- 
gium, who answered the Call. It is the 
Frenchmen who believe that the gifts of 
the Great Revolution are worth defend- 
ing, whom you will find in the trenches. 
It is the Russians who look forward 
to liberty, who give their lives for their 
country. 

Perhaps we will acquire larger influ- 



PUBLIC OPINION 35 

ence in the world by delivering the coup 
de grace to German ambitions. Perhaps 
it will enable us to negotiate profitable 
commercial treaties. Perhaps we will 
win glory and applause. But we will not 
mobilise efficiently for any such aims. If 
we are to fight well, it must be for an 
ideal — for a dream. 

The Call to Arms must be definite and 
explicit — a ringing inspiration. 



To further the mobilisation of Public 
Opinion, the Government must also give 
us a detailed plan of action. The will 
weakens in idleness. We must be given 
an answer to the question : " What can 
I do ? " Some of us can do nothing but 
sit tight. Some of us can do no more 
than help the general cause by slight 
acts of self-denial. Some of us can do 
our bit in clerical work. The factories, 
the laboratories, the training camps will 
have place for some of us. There will 
be Red Cross bandages to roll, shirts to 



36 MOBILISING 

be sewn, emergency constabulary work 
and recruiting posters to be drawn by 
artists. The list of various kinds of war 
work is interminable. And the more 
every individual citizen feels that he or 
she has work to do, the more vivid and 
firm and steadfast will grow the Will to 
Win. 

We must also know what the Gov- 
ernment is doing and planning to do. 
Timid advisers will urge secrecy, but 
the Government needs publicity. Noth- 
ing will do more to hearten us, to stim- 
ulate the mobilisation of Public Opinion, 
than knowledge of what is being done. 
And, if we are doing well, nothing will 
the more dishearten the enemy. We 
must be told which Munition Plants, 
which Government Bureaus, which Train- 
ing Camps are doing the best, so that we 
can cheer them. We must be told which 
are laggard so we can jog them up c 
The fostering of a wholesome rivalry be- 
tween the various States will keep things 
jumping. We ought to have a monthly 



PUBLIC OPINION 37 

bulletin telling how each unit in the 
scheme is growing, for if we are to be 
kept interested we must know the plan so 
we can check up progress and follow the 
national effort intelligently. 



One problem which we must face at 
once is " Censorship vs. Publicity." 

Doubtless the Devil could contrive 
some worse impediment to the mobilisa- 
tion of Public Opinion than a Censorship 
of the Press, but I doubt if he ever did. 
The blunders of the French and British 
censors have been so stupid that it is 
hard to escape the conviction that the 
idea itself is inherently stupid. Free 
discussion is the life-blood of democracy. 
Stop one and you stop the other. The 
people of France and Britain wanted a 
more efficient war than they were get- 
ting, but the Censors forbade criticism. 
If British newspaper men had not at last 
dared to risk imprisonment their Army 



38 MOBILISING 

would still be short of shells. The Cen- 
sorship in Russia made it impossible to 
drive traitors out of office except by 
bloodshed. 

Military " experts " do not like civil- 
ian criticism. Generals are not used to 
reasoning with their subordinates, they 
do not argue about their orders, and so 
they do not like to explain to the nation. 
They bitterly resent criticism. But it 
does them good. They need not only 
our criticism but our help. Our General 
Staff is asking for authority to install 
an exceedingly drastic censorship. But 
even if they forget it, let us at least keep 
this lesson of the European war in mind : 
In France and Britain the Censorship 
systems devised by the military authori- 
ties did not work. Nominally intended 
to keep information from the enemy, they 
succeeded mainly in keeping news from 
the people at home. They proved them- 
selves most efficacious in sheltering dis- 
honest army furnishers and in hiding 
from the public the ineptitude of some 



PUBLIC OPINION 39 

in high command. If the British Mili- 
tary Censor had had his way the failure 
of the Ordnance Officers to reorganise the 
Munition Industry would not have been 
discovered in time. 

No organisation ever had a more pas- 
sionate devotion to secrecy than the 
British Admiralty, but even the Sea 
Lords realised at last that they were 
overdoing it. People heard so little 
about the Navy that they were in dan- 
ger of forgetting it. So Kipling and 
Alfred Noyes and others were called in 
to write up The Fleet. At first hostile 
to all publicity, the Admirals are now 
hiring Press Agents. Any branch of a 
democratic government is in a bad way, 
if the people lose interest in it. 

At best the Censorship, in its effects 
at home, is purely negative — an effort 
to keep dangerous or misleading ideas 
from the Public. But even those who 
were strongest in their advocacy of pro- 
tecting the sheep from pernicious or sedi- 
tious ideas admit to-day that the Censor 



40 MOBILISING 

has had only negative — and meagre — 
success. Bolder spirits have trusted 
democratic commonsense even in the heat 
of war and have tried the positive method 
of combating dangerous movements of 
opinion by Publicity, by constantly giv- 
ing the man in the street something 
wholesome to think about. 

The modern soldier realises that he 
needs civilian support and sympathy, for 
the old theory that military " experts " 
would suffice to win a war has fallen into 
disrepute. Lloyd-George organising the 
Munition work, reorganising the War 
Office, is broadly typical. The courses 
in chemistry in the military academies 
were not adequate for handling the prob- 
lem of poison gas. Modern strategy is 
based on transportation, and one gets 
better railroading experience in Civil Life 
than in the Army. And even the Navy 
needs to use the brains of the Merchant 
Marine. 

While there still are old fogies in 
uniform who cling to " the-public-be- 



PUBLIC OPINION 41 

damned " theory and would rather lose a 
battle than accept help from a mere ci- 
vilian, the type of officer who is being 
produced by this war, educated not in a 
school of theory but on the field, realises 
that victory in our day depends not only 
on armies but on civilians as well. War 
— the Absolute War which the Germans 
have unloosed — is national in the widest 
sense. 

A modern Army lives on the support 
of the civilians. It is recruited from 
the people at home, supported by them, 
fed, clothed and above all munitioned 
by them. There is no more distinction 
between civilian and soldier than there 
is between the base and apex of a pyra- 
mid. The officer who has attended the 
school of this European war realises 
that he is lost if the people at home for- 
get him. 

And so, if the British and French Gen- 
eral Staff were to draw up a censorship 
law to-day, it would be very different 
from the regulations they proposed in 



42 MOBILISING 

the summer of 1914. It would be very 
different from the present project of the 
inexperienced officers of our War Col- 
lege. It would be designed exclusively 
to prevent the giving of treasonable in- 
formation to the enemy. 

With this limitation it would leave the 
door open wide for popular discussion of 
military problems. It would make it im- 
possible for the great power of the Cen- 
sor to fall into the hands of any clique 
of intriguing soldiers or politicians who 
might use it to further their private am- 
bitions. It would welcome the freest 
criticism of grafters and incompetents, 
in or out of uniform, who impede the 
efficient conduct of the campaign. And it 
would go further. It would organise a 
publicity bureau, which would constantly 
keep before the public the work and 
the needs of the men at the front. It 
would requisition space on the front 
page of every newspaper; it would call 
for a " draft " of trained writers 
to feed " Army stories " to the public ; 



PUBLIC OPINION 43 

it would organise a Corps of Press 
Agents. 

The experienced soldier, who subordi- 
nates everything to the efficiency of 
the Army, wants publicity for purely 
military reasons. But it is even more 
necessary for those who have the re- 
sponsibility for the political life of the 
nation. In order to make a democracy 
fight wholeheartedly it is necessary to 
make them understand the situation. So 
in every country as soon as hostilities be- 
gan, the Governments organised propa- 
ganda campaigns to make the struggle 
comprehensible and popular. The poli- 
ticians unloosed their silver tongues. 
Poets and publicists were mobilised. 
And just as a skilled orator feels his 
way with a strange audience, trying one 
theme after another, dropping each one 
quickly if it does not stir response, and 
at last hits on the note which moves them, 
so the various Governments gradually 
settled down to a theme of war which 
brought results. 



44 MOBILISING 

France had little need for such work. 
The fact of invasion was more eloquent 
than any oratory. 

The Germans after some fumbling 
seem to have settled down to a semi- 
mystic hate propaganda — " God punish 
our enemies." In the struggle for ex- 
istence between ideas this theme has 
proved for them the most fit to survive. 

In Britain the official propaganda has 
been more varied and supple. The ap- 
peal which brought the first wave of 
volunteers was " Bleeding Belgium," the 
duty of the strong as good sportsmen 
to defend the weak. Then the attempt 
was made to stir national pride by post- 
ers quoting the Kaiser's alleged insulting 
reference to " the contemptible little 
English Army." An effort was made to 
frighten the people by the supposed dan- 
ger of Invasion. Somewhat later, pic- 
tures were displayed of the famous 
treaty which had been called " a scrap of 
paper." Every note was sounded from 
rage against " the baby killers " to fidel- 



PUBLIC OPINION 45 

ity to the pledged word as the basis of 
international relations. But by far the 
greatest response came on the appeal to 
democratic idealism — the issue between 
popular rule and military despotism. 

We may be thankful that a great deal 
of this work of arousing us to a unified 
attitude towards the conflict was accom- 
plished by Mr. Wilson before our diplo- 
matic relations were broken with Ger- 
many. The democratic keynote of our 
war had been sounded before it began. 
It must be kept ever ringing in our 
ears. 

Public Opinion cannot be sane and 
wholesome without freedom to discuss 
and argue, to criticise and oppose. The 
creation of a Censorship over political 
debate, in speech or printed word, is like 
putting a " nigger on the safety valve." 
It means a vast and appalling ultimate 
risk for a small immediate gain. The 
appearance of unanimity which the Tsar 
won by imprisoning the opposition, the 
semblance of content which is gained by 



46 MOBILISING 

silencing discontent, the order which 
comes from tyranny, is fraudulent, un- 
stable and dangerous. It is utterly un- 
democratic. And if this is not to be a 
democratic war in the widest and noblest 
sense it is not worth waging. 

It is not enough that the objects of 
our war should be in accord with demo- 
cratic idealism. This must be equally 
true of its methods. 

Here again the lessons to be gained 
from France and Britain are illuminat- 
ing. In both countries there have been 
attempts to discredit and overthrow de- 
mocracy in internal politics. Every- 
where the Reactionists have raised their 
heads, for the troubled waters of na- 
tional crisis offered them encouragement 
and opportunity. 

At the very beginning of the war 
the French Royalist faction came to 
life. An obscure prince of the House of 
Orleans had proclamations posted up on 
the walls of Paris in which he offered to 



PUBLIC OPINION 47 

" save " France. The priests began to 
preach that Invasion was divine chastise- 
ment for the sin of disrespect towards 
Rome; and after the tide turned at the 
Marne, they brought Jeanne d'Arc out 
of heaven to account for " the Miracle." 
But the French statesmen were astute 
enough to recognise that no minority 
could win the war. So they quickly re- 
assured the great Republican majority 
and the Reaction was shown to be ridicu- 
lously weak. 

But in Britain the lines were not so 
sharply drawn. The Liberals were not 
strong enough — or did not think them- 
selves strong enough — to bear the re- 
sponsibilities of the struggle alone, and 
so Asquith invited Tories into a Coalition 
Cabinet. Inevitably the Liberal major- 
ity of Britain has been troubled, its en- 
thusiasm for the war dampened, its loy- 
alty strained, by the spectacle of notori- 
ous anti-democrats like Lord Lansdowne, 
Milner and Sir Edward Carson rising to 
power. 



48 MOBILISING 

The Irish question, although excess- 
ively complicated and difficult for outsid- 
ers to understand, illustrates my point. 
No national unanimity is possible in 
Britain, not even a working majority, 
which does not include the Liberals, the 
Labour Party and the Irish. All three 
of these groups are pledged to Home 
Rule. The interest of the Irish Nation- 
alists in the Bill is obvious. The La- 
bourites and the Liberals are pledged to 
it from a profound conviction that it is 
a measure of democratic justice too long 
delayed. But in order to gain the sup- 
port — and it was only lip service — of 
the small group of Die Hard Tories, As- 
quith gravely affronted and discouraged 
the big majority on which he should have 
based his policy. 

To many British democrats, the Coa- 
lition Cabinet and more recently the 
Lloyd-George reorganisation, has seemed 
a triumph for the Reaction. For al- 
though there is good reason to believe 
that the British Empire — like the Rus- 



PUBLIC OPINION 49 

sian — will emerge from this war more 
liberal than ever before, still the present 
trend towards Toryism is disquieting. 
The Nation, the leading Liberal weekly, 
published one discouraged editorial to the 
effect that the Germans had already won 
the war, as the Junker class was trium- 
phant at home, Britain rapidly becoming 
Prussianised. 

This is a lesson for us to bear in mind. 
Anything which tends to discourage the 
democratic element of our nation — any 
excessive profits for the Munition Mak- 
ers, any return to power of the Old 
Guard — will distinctly lower the effi- 
ciency of our mobilisation. 

Public Opinion, with us, finds its voice 
through Congress. And the frame of 
mind which befits us in this time of stress 
will need an exceptional political organ- 
isation to give it expression. Our par- 
tisan politics have been bad enough 
in peace times, and the closing scenes of 
the 64th Senate showed us only too 



.50 MOBILISING 

clearly the dangers of our present ma- 
chinery. It does not work in a crisis. 

The affairs of the Nation are too ur- 
gent at this moment to permit of a stud- 
ied reorganisation of our parliamentary 
practice, and so it was unfortunate that 
in the first days of the Special Session of 
the new Senate they attempted to reach 
a final decision in the cloture rule. Two 
things were obvious in their debate. In 
the face of this unusual tension an 
overwhelming majority of the Senators 
wanted to put an end to undemocratic 
filibusters. But also a large number 
were profoundly distrustful of any per- 
manent limitation of their right to full 
and free discussion. After much pa- 
laver they arrived at a not very satisfac- 
tory compromise. No one was suffi- 
ciently adroit to propose a temporary 
rule to meet the emergency. 

Public Opinion is disturbed over the 
prospect of the New Congress. The 
House of Representatives is so evenly 
divided in its party loyalties that no one 



PUBLIC OPINION 51 

can foresee what it will do. It may 
fight for three months over organisation, 
for the " patronage " of a whole session 
is at stake, and the choice of a Speaker 
now will undoubtedly influence the next 
Congressional elections. So the dan- 
ger of a bitter and paralysing parti- 
san struggle in the work of organising 
the House, or at some later moment in 
the life of this Congress, is obvious to us 
all. Yet no one doubts that a large ma- 
jority of the Congressmen could be 
brought together in a provisional or- 
ganisation, which would not threaten 
their perennial prerogatives and perqui- 
sites. 

What we need is a National Emer- 
gency Party. 

Many patriots have raised their voices 
in behalf of a Party Truce, a bi-parti- 
san organization based on a division of 
spoils. But the experiments in Coalition 
Government tried in France and Britain 
did not work well. First of all it meant 
a divided responsibility, allowing each 



52 MOBILISING 

party to claim credit for joint suc- 
cesses, while blaming the other party for 
every failure. But the principal trouble 
arose over the inevitable intrusion of per- 
manent issues into the temporary ma- 
chinery. 

If we hope to avoid their blunders we 
must make a sharp distinction in such 
matters. Much of the regular life of 
the community will go on in spite of war. 
The schools will stay open. The contro- 
versy between osteopaths and the ortho- 
dox priesthood of medicine will continue. 
The Inter-State Commerce Commission 
will still have to fix freight rates on knit- 
ting needles and pencil sharpeners. 
Harbors will have to be dredged, post- 
offices built, inspectors appointed. These 
matters have nothing to do with the pres- 
ent crisis, and they would unnecessarily 
clog and strain any provisional machin- 
ery. 

If a National Emergency Party were 
formed, pledges of co-operation could be 
secured from a large majority of Con- 



PUBLIC OPINION 53 

gress. They should then prepare a spe- 
cial Slate — Temporary Speaker and 
Chairmen for the Standing Committees 
of Foreign Affairs, Army, Navy and 
Finance. They should choose these men 
irrespective of party or seniority, solely 
on the basis of their ability and good re- 
pute. They should complete their or- 
ganisation like the old parties, appoint- 
ing whips and arranging for caucuses. 

In each House, the Temporary 
Speaker and the chairmen of these four 
committees would form the Emergency 
Committee. On their motion Congress 
would resolve itself into an Emergency 
Session. The Members pledged to the 
National Party would then form the ma- 
jority necessary to consider and act on 
Bills presented to meet the military sit- 
uation. 

As soon as the first batch of urgent 
war measures was disposed of, the Na- 
tional Majority would dissolve on the old 
familiar partisan lines, and Congress 
could proceed to its regular organisation 



54 MOBILISING 

and the routine of ordinary business 
until the need arose to revive the Provi- 
sional organisation. No question should 
be put by the Temporary Speaker which 
did not affect the crisis. The Perma- 
nent Organisation should deal with all 
routine business. 

There is no use now in regretting that 
we do not have a responsible ministry like 
the French, nor the chance of a new 
general election like the British. We 
have chosen the President and Congress 
for a term of years. It is bad enough to 
have them wrangle in the piping times of 
peace. They will very quickly throw 
Public Opinion into disarray and render 
efficient mobilisation impossible, if they 
do not at once work out an organisation 
which will run smoothly. And the more 
clearly the distinction is made between 
the permanent and the temporary, the 
easier it will be to find a solution. 

If the Administration is to rally to it 
a united nation it is equally necessary 
to have a reorganisation of the Execu- 



PUBLIC OPINION 55 

tive Branch of the Government. The 
best thing about our present system 
of Cabinets is that they are united by 
the allegiance of all their members to 
one political party, but the price we pay 
for this spirit of accord in the Cabinet 
is that the best brains in the other party 
are not utilised. We do not want the 
Executive Council thrown into disunion 
by partisan disputes and rivalries. The 
members must owe loyalty directly to 
their Chief, not to party machines. But 
in times of National Crisis the Cabinet 
should be as strong as possible. 

The President could increase his hold 
on Public Opinion if he dispensed with his 
less able Secretaries and replaced them 
by Republicans of more renowned abil- 
ity. And he could find in the ranks of 
the opposition men of the required abil- 
ity, who were also sufficiently patriotic 
to forget their party allegiance when 
they entered the Cabinet. They should 
be called to his council not as representa- 
tives of the Republican Organisation but 



56 MOBILISING 

as eminent Americans. It is not a coa- 
lition between two hostile parties which 
we need, but a coalescence of the nation. 
The President should choose his War 
Cabinet not only on the individual mer- 
its of the candidates, but with an eye to 
the confidence they will inspire in the na- 
tion. Tate Mr. Daniels as one example. 
His fitness as Chief of the Navy is seri- 
ously questioned. Much of the criticism 
is so bitter that it is obviously unjust. 
But what the people think of him is as 
important as what he has done. And, 
although it is quite possible that the 
attacks on him have been unfounded, 
public confidence in him has been un- 
dermined. A king, convinced of the abil- 
ity of one of his ministers, could afford 
to maintain him in office in defiance of 
popular sentiment. A president cannot. 
A man like Hoover might do no better as 
Secretary of the Navy than Daniels, but 
the change would fortify Public Opinion. 
This must be the criterion which guides 
any democratic statesman in such cir- 



PUBLIC OPINION 57 

cumstances. Personal or partisan loy- 
alties are out of place. We want the 
President surrounded by men we know 
and trust. We would be comforted to 
see Goethals as Secretary of War, not 
that we have anything against Baker, 
but because we know Goethals better. 

However, no such broadening of the 
Cabinet is possible until a dependable ma- 
jority in Congress is assured. The Ad- 
ministration, at present, has only one 
reliance in putting through its legislative 
programme — the regular party Ma- 
chine. Whether we like it or not, it is 
the only means at the disposal of the 
President. And he cannot risk weaken- 
ing the Organisation of his Party, by 
dropping " favorite sons " from his Cab- 
inet, until a sound, non-partisan Na- 
tional majority is assured in Congress. 

This, in outline, is the political prob- 
lem which we must solve. In the face of 
an unparalleled national crisis we are 
threatened by a paralysing deadlock be- 
tween the Executive and the Legislative 



58 MOBILISING 

Branches. We can not take time to 
work out permanent constitutional re- 
forms. We have need of a temporary, 
extra-legal expedient to meet the emer- 
gency. For we cannot expect unity in 
Public Opinion if the Government is di- 
vided. 

The mobilisation of governmental ma- 
chinery on a War basis once attended to, 
we can go on with the work of unify- 
ing the National Mind. In this the 
French had two great advantages which 
came from the extreme centralisation of 
their administrative system. Differ- 
ences in our national organisation make 
it impossible to borrow these French 
methods directly, but their example is 
suggestive of things we must do. 

The school mistresses have played a 
notable part in developing the superb 
unanimity of the French people. Most 
of the men in the school system have been 
called to the colors, but the school-marm 
stays at her post. And in the remote 



PUBLIC OPINION 59 

villages of France, where the great met- 
ropolitan newspapers do not penetrate, 
the school-house is always the intellec- 
tual centre of the community. 

The Premier addresses the Chambre 
des Deuptes on some matter of national 
importance. The Minister of Public In- 
struction makes a resume of it, with am- 
ple explanatory notes, and sends it out 
as a " general order " to his subordi- 
nates. A few days later every school 
mistress in France reads it to her pupils. 
In the evening the principal men of the 
village talk it over with her and they all 
go home that night — the peasants from 
Brittany to Mentone — thinking of the 
same problem from the same point of 
view. 

Monsieur Ribot, the white-haired wiz- 
ard of finance, decides to issue a new 
loan. He wants all the thrifty, good 
people of France to empty their stock- 
ings, their little hoards of gold, into the 
treasury of La Patrie. He calls on his 
colleague of Public Instruction and be- 



60 MOBILISING 

tween them they compose an explanatory 
" general order " to the school teachers 
of France. So when the placards are 
put up, advertising the new loan, there is 
always at least one person in even the 
tiniest village who can explain each 
clause of the law. 

It is a steady, quiet, unobtrusive influ- 
ence — but vastly significant. When 
the history of the war is written the 
school mistresses of France will deserve 
great credit. They have done " their 
bit " by explaining to the people the 
events of the war, stimulating their pa- 
triotism, unifying their thinking and 
keeping them from discouragement when 
the news is bad. 

The National Ownership of the Tele- 
graph has also given the French Govern- 
ment a tool which they have been quick 
to use. Twice a day the General Staff 
issues a statement on the military situa- 
tion. The midnight bulletin is not so im- 
portant as the afternoon " communique 
de trois heures." There is something 



PUBLIC OPINION 61 

hypnotic in its monotonous regularity. 
Every day, for more than two years, 
everybody in France, man, woman and 
child, has grown tense together, waiting 
for the three o'clock bulletin. It is stu- 
pendous — the whole nation thinking to- 
gether once every day. 

All morning long people attend to and 
think of their personal affairs. But 
after lunch La France — the nation — 
begins to come into being. You can 
see the tension grow. By two o'clock 
every one is thinking up plausible excuses 
to be out on the street in front of the 
post office when the communique is re- 
ceived. 

It is not good form now in France to 
show emotion. Republican stoicism is 
in order. And so at this fateful hour 
the people appear indifferent. But each 
mind is questioning: "Will the news 
to-day be good or bad? " All are mak- 
ing the daily resolve to meet the news as 
brave citizens — not to lose their heads 
in extravagant optimism over successes, 



62 MOBILISING 

not to show distress if the bulletin is 
" grave. 9 * 

I was travelling in France last spring 
when the Crown Prince was pounding at 
Verdun, and I have never seen anything 
more inspiring than the way the people 
of the South, of Lyons, of Paris, took 
the daily communique de trots heures. 
It was terrible at first when the news was 
regularly bad. But France was marvel- 
lous under the blows. Never was any na- 
tion more united in the face of the enemy. 
The regular rhythm of thinking together 
once a day, in fair days and foul, has 
had a stupendous, an incalculable effect. 

So we must do over here. By every 
means at its disposal our Government 
must strive to get us thinking together. 
For unless that is accomplished, there is 
nothing but endless muddle before us, a 
welter of blunders, inefficiency and dis- 
grace. We — the people of the United 
States — are the force back of the 
Government. Unless our Will to Win 



PUBLIC OPINION 63 

is passionate and determined, our Army 
and Navy will accomplish little. 

Forain, the great cartoonist, drew a 
picture early in 1915 which has been 
worth a couple of Army Corps to 
France. 

It represented two poilus in the rain 
and mud of that first winter in the 
trenches. They are discussing the pros- 
pects of the war. 

" We'll win," one of them says, " pro- 
vided they stand firm." 

" They ? " his comrade asks. " Who 
do you mean? " 

" The civilians." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MOBILISATION OF INDUSTRY 

IT is in money and munitions that we 
can most promptly help our com- 
rades already in arms. And the amount 
of aid we can give them is limited only 
by the strength of our national desire. 
If we are in earnest about it we can do 
a great deal. 

One thing is certain. However long 
the war lasts, whether our Army is to be 
large or small, the Government will have 
to do a great deal of buying. And even 
if our only contribution to our friends in 
Europe should be food, we ought to have 
a Government Purchasing Bureau to 
protect them from speculators here. We 
have much to learn from Europe in mili- 
tary matters, but in meeting r such prob- 
lems as this we are prepared. 
64 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 65 

Goethals of Panama or Hoover of 
Belgium at the head of the Purchasing 
Bureau would at once remove all sus- 
picion of slackness, inefficiency or graft. 
Such men are a national asset of which 
we must make use. Names like theirs 
are symbols of the kind of decent, 
energetic, efficient action which would 
make the war popular. And we have 
more reason to fear graft than German 
spies. It will take only a very little 
" embalmed beef " to take all the snap 
out of us. 



The methods by which we can most ef- 
fectively put our immense financial re- 
serves at work for the defeat of Ger- 
many must be planned by experts. 

Our laws are notoriously backward in 
governmental control of finance. But 
the savings of the people are as much a 
part of our national resources as our 
man-power. We can no more permit a 
banker to use the money which we have 



66 MOBILISING 

intrusted to him in unpatriotic specula- 
tions, than we could allow a general to 
lend one of our regiments to the enemy. 
The vast sum of our savings in banks, in- 
surance and trust companies is a force 
which should be immediately available as 
a national weapon. 

Once more, this is no time to argue out 
far-reaching, permanent reforms in our 
fiscal S3^stem. We need an emergency 
measure, which — for the duration of the 
emergency — will put our financial re- 
serves at the disposal of the Government. 
We do not want acrimonious discus- 
sions of the best way to raise the budget 
in normal times. We do not want be- 
fogging debates on the relative sound- 
ness of Bond Issues and Direct Taxation. 
We want quick results. Europe has been 
a laboratory of experiment in War Fi- 
nance, and our Treasury experts ought 
to know which method has proved the 
best. Most of us have small knowledge 
of finance, but loans — Bond Issues — 
seem to mean a larger profit to the mid- 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 67 

dleman banker, which is of course an ar- 
gument against that method. Still if the 
lessons of the European War have con- 
vinced our government experts that Bond 
Issues are the quickest and most effective 
means of mobilising finance, few of us will 
feel inclined to argue. The results, more 
than the methods, are of importance in 
an emergency. 

The one thing for us, who are laymen, 
to insist upon is that our bankers shall 
no longer coin excessive profits out of 
the needs of our friends. 



When we leave the icy heights of 
finance and come down to " the business 
proposition " of intensifying the output 
of munitions, we face a problem more 
comprehensible to most of us. It was 
however the gravest and most trouble- 
some problem with which the democracies 
of Europe had to deal. 

In 1914 no one knew what was the best 
ratio between munition makers and sol- 



68 MOBILISING 

diers. No one could foresee what was 
going to be needed. Few knew where the 
raw material came from. Worst of all 
no one was sure how long the war would 
,last. Every one under-estimated its 
duration. So neither France nor Brit- 
ain had a coherent plan of munition pro- 
duction to start with. Inevitably every- 
thing at first was chaotic, makeshift, 
inefficient. 

Britain went through three stages in 
the effort to intensify output — first, an 
appeal to private initiative; second, re- 
luctant State Aid; and third, a thor- 
oughgoing Government control. In the 
last stage the increase in production has 
been phenomenal. 

The munitions which we have furnished 
to the Entente so far have come solely 
from private initiative. We have barely 
scratched the surface of our resources. 
If the Government sets its shoulder to 
the wheel the increase of output will be 
immense. We have had more than two 
years to watch our sister democracies of 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 69 

Europe struggle with this problem — and 
solve it. We have had ample time — and 
it is to be hoped, also the intelligence — 
to profit by their experience. 



There are in particular two dangers 
to be avoided. 

I. In the first days of the war there 
was a natural and comprehensible tend- 
ency to put every energy into the Army 
and to let industry take care of itself. 
France blundered into this error more 
deeply and suffered more from it than 
Britain. At the call to arms she put too 
many men into uniform and let her fac- 
tories close down. The immediate inva- 
sion of her coal and iron districts in the 
North was a great blow, but her mu- 
nition industry was even more hampered 
by lack of men. In spite of the patriotic 
response of the women of France, who 
not only brought in the harvests to feed 
the nation but also in great numbers 
entered the factories, the Army was soon 



70 MOBILISING 

short of munitions. It was only slowly 
and with hesitancy that the Government 
recovered from the Short War Fallacy 
and began sending men back from the 
front to work the machines of industry. 

Britain — from the same reason — 
made the same blunder. It was lightly 
assumed that the best way to serve your 
country was to die for it. No serious 
discrimination was made in the early re- 
cruiting. Thousands and thousands of 
men who were very much more valuable in 
the mines, the iron mills and in agricul- 
ture went into the training camps. 

II. The opposite error, " Business as 
usual " — also a result of the Short War 
Fallacy — was an even more serious 
check to speedy and complete mobilisa- 
tion of industry. And into this mistake 
Britain stumbled more deeply than 
France. 

The old Manchester School of Political 
Economy — the laissez-faire, trust-to- 
luck philosophy — still dominated the 
thinking of the English Liberals. The 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 71 

Government wanted to interfere with the 
processes of industry as little as possible. 
Production, they held, is based on the 
lure of profits. They were entirely un- 
prepared to realise that people will work 
harder out of patriotism than they will 
for an increase of income. 

So at first Britain tried to meet an ex- 
traordinary emergency by ordinary 
means. " Private initiative " was tried 
and miserably fell down on the job. 
The Government then took hesitating 
steps in the direction of State Aid: 
grants of capital, subsidies, bonuses. 
But these measures — in the immoderate 
need — brought only moderate returns. 
And so, as they could not get results by 
appeal to the commercial instinct, they 
were forced at last to go the limit in 
direct government control and operation 
of the war industries. 

In France the difficulty on this score 
arose principally over the lack of a clear 
definition of " munitions." Every one 
was ready to admit that shells are ammu- 



72 MOBILISING 

nition and that their manufacture should 
at once be directed and controlled by the 
Government. But is red wine, which les 
poilus call " pintard" a munition? And 
how about the silk used for balloon en- 
velopes? "Munitions" are as hard to 
define as " contraband." Of course the 
only workable definition is: all things 
needed by the Government for the con- 
duct of the war. It is not the nature of 
the product which is important, but who 
needs it. 

The French suffered considerably from 
lack of such a definition. It was in these 
subsidiary industries that the profiteurs 
piled up excessive fortunes and that the 
worst labor conflicts occurred. 



The greatest element in mobilising in- 
dustry is Labor. Nothing much can be 
done without the hearty co-operation of 
the wage-workers and of their organisa- 
tions. Here again the struggles of the 
European democracies with this problem 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 73 

which now faces us is full of lessons — 
lessons both of encouragement and of 
warning. 

Imperial Germany has not — presum- 
ably has not dared to — put as much 
strain on her laborers as France and 
Britain. At the first sign of food short- 
age, the Kaiser's government put the 
nation on rations which bore more heavily 
on the well-to-do than on the poor. The 
system of bread and meat tickets has not 
greatly reduced the diet of the wage- 
earners. The German statesmen have 
nursed the proletariat. Even Prussia 
has promised them some measure of dem- 
ocratic power after the war. An intelli- 
gent and largely successful effort has 
been made not to give the workers any 
specific grievances. 

The democratic governments were not 
so foresighted. They were slow to es- 
tablish measures to safeguard the inter- 
ests of Labor. It was only under the 
pressure of circumstances that they gave 
attention to this problem. 



74 MOBILISING 

Both in France and Britain the or- 
ganised workers responded immediately 
and wholeheartedly to the Call to Arms. 
Many were surprised at this. In France 
the extreme revolutionary syndicalism of 
the General Confederation of Labor had 
been intensely anti-militarist and to a 
large extent anarchistic and anti-patriot. 
But behind the fog of diplomatic corre- 
spondence and the veil of theory, the 
workers of France and Britain saw a 
clear-cut issue between democracy and 
military despotism. They believed that 
the principles of popular self-government 
were worth defending and they rallied to 
the Call with a patriotism not surpassed 
by any class of society. 

The English Unions gave more than 
their proportion to the first wave of 
volunteers. On their own initiative they 
abandoned all their strike plans. This 
was a very real sacrifice for them. The 
cost of living had been going up in Eng- 
land in the last decade and there had 
been no compensating raise in wages, so 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 75 

practically all the large unions were pre- 
paring for simultaneous strikes in the 
fall of 1914. They had been at work 
for years mobilising for a bitter fight. 
The German Government, through their 
spies, knew of this. They were counting 
on Industrial War in England. But in 
the face of national danger the British 
workers gave up their own plans and 
threw themselves into the work of Na- 
tional Defence. 

Of almost equal importance to this sac- 
rifice of their wage demands, was the ac- 
tion of the British Unions in regard to 
fraudulent Army Furnishers. They 
served notice that they would strike in 
any shop which tried to cheat on govern- 
ment contracts. And the fact that the 
British Army has suffered less than ever 
before in its history from paper-soled 
shoes, shoddy clothing, and wooden bul- 
lets is very largely due to the patriotism 
of Organised Labor. 

But this first spontaneous outburst of 
patriotism — this immensely valuable 



76 MOBILISING 

asset — was soon dampened. To a less 
extent in France, to a much greater ex- 
tent in England, the enthusiasm of the 
working class was cooled by official stu- 
pidity — - sometimes stupidity of act, 
but more often of inaction. 

The development of the situation in the 
coal fields of South Wales is broadly typ- 
ical. There had been a good deal of anti- 
militarist agitation among the men. In 
the week before hostilities broke out, they 
had voted to strike in case of war. They 
expected a like action from the coal min- 
ers of Germany. Modern war they 
argued would be impossible without coal, 
so if all the miners of the world acted 
together the great tragedy could be pre- 
vented. But Organised Labor in Ger- 
many did not respond. (There also the 
workers were more loyal to their govern- 
ment than to their class.) And the first 
news of the invasion of Belgium put an 
end to all anti-military propaganda in 
Wales. The miners proved themselves 
more patriotic than the rest of England 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 77 

— furnishing considerably more volun- 
teers than their due proportion. 

Once war began there was no thought 
of a strike in the coal fields. The men 
who had not volunteered were working 
overtime to make up for those who had 
gone and to increase the gross output. 
But all this the Government accepted 
from them as a matter of course. It 
took no care to protect them from less 
patriotic people who were taking advan- 
tage of their sacrifices. 

Very soon discontent — inevitable, 
justifiable discontent — arose. For the 
coal-owners were not exhibiting any self- 
denying patriotism. They were charg- 
ing top prices — all the traffic would 
bear — to the Navy, the Merchant Fleet 
and the Munition Factories. They were 
also holding up the Allies. The profits 
of the coal owners and their close allies, 
the shipping interests, soared. And the 
Government, committed to the Business- 
as-usual theory, did nothing to stop this 
abuse till the complaints from France and 



78 MOBILISING 

Italy, where people were freezing and 
where the manufacture of munitions was 
being throttled, became too strident to 
be ignored. 

The miners knew that their extra ef- 
forts were benefitting the Cause of De- 
mocracy very little, but were swelling the 
fortunes of their bosses extravagantly. 
And the Government did nothing to pro- 
tect them from the piracy of the food 
speculators. While their wages, inade- 
quate before the war, had not been in- 
creased, the price of their food had gone 
up forty per cent. 

But the worst of it was that when the 
public outcry for cheaper coal and a 
greater output became insistent, the Coal 
Barons replied that they could do noth- 
ing unless the Unions were smashed. 
They proposed some laws, compulsory 
arbitration, forced labor, etc., which 
seemed to the workers cold-blooded as- 
saults on their liberties. 

And then the first strike broke out. 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 79 

The Government, in the person of Mr. 
Lloyd George, came down to Wales to 
mediate. His intervention gives us a 
very human picture of a perplexed states- 
man, immensely preoccupied with other 
and to him more important problems, ob- 
sessed by the Short War Fallacy — a fal- 
lacy shared by his colleagues in office, 
shared by almost every one. His domi- 
nant idea was to postpone all lesser is- 
sues in the face of the great national 
crisis. As he has dealt with the Irish 
Question, so he dealt with the Welsh 
miners. 

We do not know what he said to the 
bosses — that was a private conference. 
But he spoke to the men in a public meet- 
ing. He had no coherent remedy for 
their complaints. He had not had time 
to think the problem out. He did not be- 
lieve there was time to solve it. The 
midst of a Great War was not an ideal 
occasion for an attempt to settle the age- 
old dispute between the " haves " and the 



80 MOBILISING 

" have-nots." His one object was to get 
the men back to work and postpone the 
settlement. 

Lloyd George is a past master of pop- 
ular oratory. And all his repertoire is 
in that speech* — half-sobbing emotional 
pathos, cajolery and good jokes, prom- 
ises and threats. But the keynote of it 
all was an appeal to their loyalty. 
" Don't go back on the boys at the 
front." 

The men, unconvinced by his promises 
but moved by his appeal, went back 
to their underground jobs. And we may 
imagine Mr. Lloyd George heaving a 
great sigh of relief, taking the midnight 
train back to the Parliament at West- 
minster, brushing aside those who wanted 
to waste time congratulating him over 
his success in Wales, and throwing his 
tireless energy into the soul-consuming 
work of infusing activity into the nation. 

And we cannot be very much surprised 
that, in the rush of other work, he forgot 
his promises to the Welsh Miners — till 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 81 

they reminded him of their intolerable 
conditions by new strikes. 

With slight differences of detail this is 
the story of every industrial dispute 
which has arisen in France or England to 
impede the conduct of the War. Every- 
where Organised Labor was patriotic — 
wanted to be patriotic — and came more 
than half-way to meet the Government 
in the defence of democratic institutions. 
It cheerfully assumed more than its due 
share of the common burden. But where 
Labor was rebuffed, it grew sullen. If 
the workers were not protected from less 
patriotic exploiters, they tried to pro- 
tect themselves by the only weapon they 
knew. 

The Organised Working-men are pecu- 
liarly sensitive to Public Opinion. They 
have not the type of mind of those fili- 
bustering Senators who stood out alone 
against the manifest will of their asso- 
ciates. If the Unions are convinced that 
their interests are being protected, that 
the war is not being conducted against 



82 MOBILISING 

them, they will at once discountenance 
any unjustified strike in a time of crisis. 

This was illustrated when a group of 
mechanics on the Panama Canal job 
tried to hold up the Commission for wages 
far in excess of those gained by their 
mates at home. They had no reason for 
striking, except that they thought they 
had the Government in a hole. But their 
own National Organisation at home at 
once denounced them and offered to re- 
place them if they quit work. 

The coal strikes in Wales would not 
have been possible if an overwhelming 
proportion of the Trade Unionists in 
other industries had not considered them 
justified. If the Government had had a 
strong case against the Welsh miners, 
the other working-men would not have 
countenanced the strike. But by failing 
to protect labor from unpatriotic ex- 
ploitation the Government had weakened 
its case hopelessly. 

The wage earning class is the largest 
and most devotedly liberal element in 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 83 

any modern nation. No democratic war 
is possible without their wholehearted 
support. And the question of assuring 
their cordial co-operation — obviously a 
matter of vital importance — will not 
solve itself. It demands immediate at- 
tention. It cannot be evaded. It must 
be faced. 

The problem will be the same in 
America. The men will be patriotic, for 
they hate the autocratic principle. 
They will support our government 
against autocrats abroad, in so far as 
they are convinced that it is not con- 
trolled by our home-grown autocrats. 

But every one who reads our newspa- 
pers knows that many big employers of 
labor openly advocate universal mili- 
tary service as a good means of smash- 
ing the Unions. Some have written in 
the public press favoring a war with 
Germany — a war with any one — on 
the theory of Napoleon, the Less, that: 
" Foreign adventures distract attention 
from discontent at home." And just as 



84 MOBILISING 

the French Republicans knew that the 
Royalists and Clericalists would grasp at 
war as a pretext to regain power, so 
our working-men know that anti-labor 
forces will try to use this crisis to at- 
tack them. 

This is not a question of whether one 
approves or disapproves of the Organ- 
isation of Labor. It is a lesson of cold 
fact. A democracy cannot carry on an 
effective war without the sincere co- 
operation of the working class. And 
the Unions will not support a war which 
is directed against themselves. They 
cannot be expected to consider that pa- 
tient submission to overwork and under- 
pay for the greater glory and profit of 
the bosses is a patriotic duty. 

Imperial Germany was astute enough 
to foresee the danger of any justified dis- 
content among its workers. France saw 
it quickly. Britain, less quickly. But 
in the end, after many bitter and anxious 
moments, Britain had to face and solve 
the problem. Are we adroit enough to 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 85 

profit by these lessons or must we learn 
them for ourselves by months of muddle, 
painful paralysing strikes and industrial 
war? 



One point to which I have frequently 
referred and which deserves emphasis in 
this connection is the advisability of mak- 
ing it clear that War Measures are 
temporary. 

Throughout the first two years of war, 
when Britain was evolving a solution to 
the munition problem, the issue was con- 
tinually befogged by the ingrained Brit- 
ish reverence for precedents — respect 
for those already established and fear of 
establishing unsound rules for the future. 

It was only slowly that the nation 
came to realise that the crisis was un- 
precedented, that methods were demanded 
which had no relation to the needs of 
normal times. The process of intensify- 
ing munition production would have been 
immensely speeded up, if British states- 



86 MOBILISING 

manship had produced a formula of 
emergency. A clear statement that war 
measures were temporary, and not to be 
used as precedents for the future, would 
have greatly eased the situation. 

One thing which seems a strange para- 
dox is that the same Coal Barons who 
fought doggedly against any concessions 
to their men, submitted without a quiver 
to direct war taxes — taxes on profits, 
taxes on income — of unprecedented 
rigor. Some of them are paying a quar- 
ter in the dollar in income tax and the 
other taxes besides. They submitted to 
these drastic taxes for the very reason 
that being so drastic, they could not be 
permanent. 

But in facing the industrial problem, 
Lloyd George never found the happy 
formula to free his proposed concessions 
from the suspicion of permanency. 

There had been so much talk of Gov- 
ernment Ownership of the coal mines in 
the pre-war days that the owners were on 
their guard. They preferred to have the 



\ 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 87 

tax-gatherer take a quarter of their cash 
to having any suspicion cast on the 
validity of their title to the source of their 
wealth. Even if Government operation 
be the wiser permanent policy, it is ob- 
viously tactless to raise the question un- 
necessarily at a moment when you want 
the wholehearted co-operation of the ac- 
tual owner. 

The same psychological snag was re- 
peatedly run against when dealing with 
Labor. Men who had been earning 
eight shillings a day gladly volunteered 
at a shilling a day — for the duration of 
the war. The same men at home fought 
stubbornly against reduction to seven 
shillings and six. The}' were ready to 
accept any temporary sacrifice demanded 
by the emergency, but they resisted bit- 
terly any lowering of their Union stand- 
ards, any concession at all, which seemed 
a permanent surrender. 

So, whenever our Government appeals 
to either Capital or Labor for sacri- 
fices in behalf of the war, it is of pri- 



88 MOBILISING 

mary importance to make it clear that 
the concession asked for is a temporary 
emergency measure. 

The experience of France and Britain 
indicate a solution of this nature : 

The War Government should clearly 
state that it is not trying to solve the 
Industrial Problem, that the measures it 
proposes are temporary and will not out- 
live the emergency, that its one object 
in interfering with industry is the in- 
tensification of production. 

The Munitions Commission should ap- 
portion its orders to existing plants (or 
arrange for their erection if necessary). 
Any company accepting government con- 
tracts should open its books. The Com- 
mission should fix a price based on ac- 
tual costs of production and a moderate 
profit — eight per cent, or whatever 
proves necessary to attract private cap- 
ital. And a schedule of increasing pro- 
duction up to utmost capacity should 
be agreed upon. 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 89 

The contracts should read that the 
Government will not intervene so long as 
the output is maintained in quality and 
quantity as per specifications — but that 
it will at once assume control of the fac- 
tory, for the duration of the war, if pro- 
duction falls below the schedule agreed 
upon. 

It would then be up to the Employer 
and the Employes to arrange their 
own difficulties as they saw fit, so long 
as their dispute did not slacken the out- 
put. 

If the boss felt that his men were mak- 
ing excessive demands and that his 
profits were too low, he could quit the 
job and turn his factory over to the 
Government. 

If the men felt that the boss was mak- 
ing excessive profits, overworking or un- 
derpaying them, they could strike and 
automatically become Government em- 
ployes. 

There should be a clear understanding 
on all sides of exactly what would hap- 



90 MOBILISING 

pen if a cessation of work forced the 
Government to assume control. It 
should mean to the owners a rental of 
six per cent, on the physical value of 
their property, to the men employment 
under the Union conditions in vogue in 
the Government Arsenals. 

The Munition Commission should call 
together representatives of Capital and 
Labor and say to them : 

" Citizens, we are at war. And in 
these modern days it is the volume of 
munitions that wins. Our ability at or- 
ganising industrial ventures is one of our 
great national prides. For the moment 
it is by industrial co-operation that we 
can most help our Comrades who are al- 
ready in arms. 

" We do not intend to use this emer- 
gency of war as a pretext to put through 
any collectivist legislation and we are 
not going to use this crisis as an excuse 
for smashing organised labor. We are 
not attempting to solve the permanent 
problems which face you. In your dis- 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 91 

putes, we will be — for the duration of 
the war — strictly neutral. 

" The National Emergency is too ur- 
gent to permit of consideration of the 
Industrial Problem in the abstract. We 
are faced by a concrete task — the in- 
crease of output. We are not inter- 
ested in anything else. 

" To you, whose capital is at stake, 
we promise not to adopt any confisca- 
tory policy. We want you to operate 
and direct your factories. We intend to 
pay you for the use of your property and 
for your administrative work. We will 
give you a price estimated on a decent 
profit. As long as you continue to oper- 
ate your plant and intensify your pro- 
duction we will not limit your earnings. 
If you can improve your methods and 
increase your dividends, we will not ob- 
ject. If you can increase your profits 
by finding labor below the market price 
— well, that does not sound wise to us — 
but we will not intervene on that score. 
If you can afford to pay your employes 



92 MOBILISING 

more than Union rates, so much the bet- 
ter. But we are not directly interested 
in profits or wages. Our concern is only 
with output. To fall below the standard 
is industrial treason. 

" To you, who contribute to industry 
your strength and manual skill, we prom- 
ise adequate protection. We can not 
possibly win this war without your en- 
thusiastic patriotism. We know you are 
in hearty accord with ideals for which 
we are fighting. But, while we expect 
your support, we are also resolved to de- 
serve it. We may have to ask you to 
waive some of your Union rules. But 
such sacrifices as are demanded of you we 
stamp with our guaranty, ' Temporary.' 
They are emergency — house-afire — 
measures. We pledge ourselves to allow 
no one to take selfish advantage of such 
sacrifices. 

"We cannot at this time plan an 
ideal wage, nor ideal shop conditions. 
We must take the best we can find ready 
at hand. We will maintain the labor 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 93 

conditions as worked out in Government 
Shops, of which your Unions have ap- 
proved, as a minimum standard. If we 
are unable to prevent an increase in the 
cost of living, the Government wage will 
be raised in compensation. You are fa- 
miliar with the standards in our govern- 
ment factories. You are to consider 
that you have a right to similar condi- 
tions. 

" However, it is not our intention to 
limit you to this minimum. Many em- 
ployers in private factories are able to 
give better terms. We have no objec- 
tion to your drawing a hundred dollars 
a minute if you can find any one to pay 
it. Whether your wage is raised or low- 
ered is not our concern. Do anything 
you want to better your condition which 
does not check production. The books 
are open on Government jobs, you can 
see for yourself how far you can go. 
But all you can gain by striking is Gov- 
ernment operation and Government wages 
— and no more! 



94* MOBILISING 

" Citizens, we have tried to be fair 
to both sides. We undertake to protect 
each of you from unpatriotic or unjust 
demands of the other. We are subor- 
dinating everything to the needs of this 
emergency. We would much prefer not 
to assume the burden of operating the 
munition industry and we hope you can 
do it for us. If you fail us, we will be 
forced to take over your factories for the 
duration of the war. That will mean six 
per cent, for Capital and fair wages for 
Labor. 

" Now we appeal to you as patriots. 
The time has not come when you are 
needed at the front to defend those ideals 
which are our common heritage and 
treasure. Your country needs, not your 
blood, but your skill. 

" We have done the best we can for 
you. Now — go to it ! Deliver the 
goods ! " 

Capital, although in Europe it has 
been very reluctant to forego excessive 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 95 

profits, could hardly object to such a 
patriotic appeal. 

And no one who knows Organised La- 
bor here, or has watched it in this war 
emergency in Europe, can doubt that it 
would respond wholeheartedly. 

It would not be necessary to conscript 
Labor. The Government has been a 
" good employer." In times of peace 
the men have learned that. Very few of 
them would want to strike on a govern- 
ment job in a time of crisis. Any who 
did would be overwhelmed by the denun- 
ciations of their mates. 

Give them this for a slogan — "A 
fair wage and a fair profit " — and they 
will boost our industrial production to 
the sky. 

It is not their patriotism which is in 
question, but their faith in our good 
faith. Reassure them, convince them 
that their sacrifices are appreciated, and 
the trouble with the labor market will 
not be strikes, but the tendency of the 



96 MOBILISING 

men to sneak away from the factories to 
enlist. 

I chanced to visit one munition plant 
in England. It had been organised on 
capital, most of which had been raised 
by a free loan from the Government. 
The contract with the Munition Depart- 
ment had been arranged on an estimated 
weekly output of 3,000 shells and the 
price had been based on this figure. 

The shops were placarded with post- 
ers urging the workers to " do their 
bit," " to help the boys at the front." 
And by such ardent appeals to the pa- 
triotism of the employes the output had 
been nearly doubled. But no increase in 
pay had been granted the workers and no 
reduction had been made in the price of 
sale to the Government. 

The employes in this shop, many of 
whom were women, worked at tremendous 
speed for exceedingly long hours. They 
did it " to help the boys at the front " 
but they soon realised — and were sore 
and bitter with the knowledge — that 



MONEY AND MUNITIONS 97 

most of their patriotic effort was being 
absorbed by the shockingly big profits of 
the shareholders. 

I presume that this case was excep- 
tionally flagrant. I visited these shops 
before the Government became rigorous 
in its effort to stop such scandals. But 
there were enough similar cases to 
seriously dampen the first patriotic ar- 
dor of the British wage-earners. No 
government deserves the support of 
Labor under such circumstances. 

The country which can say to its 
workers, "This is a war of fair wages 
and fair profits" is the kind of a 
country the workers will fight for. 



CHAPTER V 

THE MOBILISATION OF MEN 

IF events should force us to fight to the 
limit of our strength, we could muster 
an army of more than ten million men. 
Of course we could not do so at once and 
it is hard to imagine circumstances which 
would demand so great an effort. But 
experience has shown that one-tenth of 
the total population is the standard of 
complete mobilisation. 

Canada went into the War under con- 
ditions not dissimilar to ours. They 
were not invaded, they were unprepared, 
and they had like us a large number of 
non-assimilated immigrants. And we 
have to our advantage the lessons of 
their experience and a big start in the 
munition business. Yet in two and a half 
years they have reached near to half of 
98 



MEN 99 

complete mobilisation. Approximately 
one-twentieth of their population is in 
uniform, at the front or in the training 
camps. 

So, if we do as well as our next-door 
neighbor, we ought to muster in the same 
period five million men and have at least 
half of them ready for active service. 

Few well-informed people are sure that 
the war will be over this summer. The 
best judgment seems to consider a 1918 
campaign more than probable. So we 
ought to raise an Expeditionary Force 
of Half a Million — a real army, ready 
for service — within a year after the 
Declaration of War. Even if luck fa- 
vors us and our transports do not have 
to sail, the fact that we have the men 
ready to embark will have an influence 
— perhaps the decisive influence — on 
determining whether 1918 shall be as 
blood-soaked as 1917 promises to be. 
And so if we are to exercise that influ- 
ence on Germany next year we must begin 
organising our military force at once. 



100 MOBILISING 

We do not want to repeat the blunder 
of falling into the Short War Fallacy. 
Whether we are going to need half a mil- 
lion men or ten million — a matter no 
one can predetermine — the preliminary 
work will be much the same. If we start 
out to raise an Army of Half a Million, 
it will take very little extra effort to pre- 
pare to double or quadruple it, if the need 
arises. 

It is always easy to demobilise. But 
time once lost is never found again. 

If the nation is grimly and passion- 
ately resolved to enforce its will, if the 
finances and industry of the country are 
efficiently mobilised, the raising and 
training of men is merely a matter of 
that sort of detail organisation at which 
we have always been expert. There is 
nothing mystic nor esoteric about mili- 
tary organisation. 

First of all we must kill the " Business 
as usual " frame of mind. We must 
realise that it is not natural to be at 
war, that an upheaval — like the San 



MEN 101 

Francisco Earthquake or the Galveston 
Tidal Wave — has overwhelmed our nor- 
mal life, and that we must all turn out 
to build emergency shelters for what we 
hold dear. We must be willing to post- 
pone usual business till the return of 
Peace. The speed and effectiveness with 
which we develop military power will de- 
pend entirely on how keenly we are de- 
termined to have it. 



It is on the sea that our forces will 
first come into contact with the enemy. 
So the Navy must have the right of way 
in recruiting. We must give them all 
the men they need. The general public 
can have very little to say about Naval 
Strategy, for the Censorship abroad has 
been so strict in regard to Admiralty op- 
erations that the lessons of this two and 
a half years of sea war are not available 
for the layman. We must trust that our 
Admirals will be well advised by our Al- 
lies. 



102 MOBILISING 

The Navy must also have the first call 
on our industrial resources. The ships 
which they need must be laid down at 
once and pushed to speedy completion. 
And in their building programme there 
must be plans for an adequate transport 
system for the Army when it is ready. 



One branch of our Military strength 
is already fully trained and can be 
quickly mobilised. In our Corps of 
Army Engineers, and the men they have 
trained at Panama, we have a force im- 
mediately available, and there is no rea- 
son for them to stay at home in idleness 
waiting for us to develop an Army. 
There is not a General in the Entente 
forces who would not welcome an in- 
crease to his staff of engineers. On every 
front the " sappers " are overworked. 
Whether it is digging new trenches or 
draining water out of old ones, building 
roads or driving mines or laying con- 
crete gun emplacements, there is endless 



MEN 103 

work for the engineers. Operations at 
Saloniki and Avlona would be immensely 
facilitated by harbor work. And every 
General Staff needs more railroads. 

The need is greatest in Russia. Her 
entire transportation system is disorgan- 
ised. She has the men for her Army, 
but lacks equipment. And she can only 
get the munitions over long, congested 
railroads. Stores are piled high at Arch- 
angel and Vladivostok. It is not a ques- 
tion of how much ammunition her allies 
can furnish her, but how much her rail- 
roads will carry from the ports to the fir- 
ing line. 

If our Engineers could put the Trans- 
Siberian Railroad on a basis of American 
efficiency it would be a greater blow to 
Germany's military dreams than any one 
other thing we might do. 

This transportation tangle has been 
discussed in Russia since the outbreak of 
the war, but they were short of Engineers 
and needed those they had elsewhere — 
and they did not believe the War would 



104 MOBILISING 

last very long. So the loan of a large 
force of expert American railroad men to 
Russia would be real efficiency, giving 
help where it was most needed. It might 
go a long way towards ending the war. 



In the development of land forces the 
first need is proper facilities for speedy 
technical education. There is a wide dif- 
ference of opinion on how many months 
of instruction it takes to prepare a pri- 
vate soldier, how many to fit a man for a 
commission. But of the two, the school- 
ing of enlisted men takes less time. 
Therefore the creation of a corps of offi- 
cers is the first step in raising an army. 
There is no gain in calling men away 
from industry and then holding them in 
camps through months of idleness be- 
cause there is no one to train them. The 
importance of this point, while recog- 
nised by military men who have had 
actual experience with volunteer forces, 



MEN 105 

is perhaps not understood by the general 
public. 

There is a ratio in any army between 
mouths and muskets. Take the British 
Army as an example, for it will be the 
same with ours. Its size can be stated 
as the number of men in uniform — the 
number of rations. But its strength de- 
pends on the number of men actually 
engaging the enemy — the number of ri- 
fles. Now, you can put as many men as 
you care to feed into uniform, but you 
can not send them into active service 
until they have proper leadership. 

A lack of clear understanding of this 
point — or perhaps it was an effort to 
frighten the Germans with resounding 
numbers — has handicapped the British 
Army from the start. The first wave of 
volunteers utterly overwhelmed the small 
number of available officers. White- 
haired old gentlemen from the Reserve 
were set to work giving the recruits an- 
tiquated, pre-Boer War drill, and so 



106 MOBILISING 

wasted months teaching them things they 
later had to unlearn. The training of 
officers on a large scale was not begun 
promptly. Always there were too many 
men. The Universal Conscription Bill 
was passed before the volunteer army was 
properly commanded. And it is doubt- 
ful if to-day the British have anything 
like enough officers for the vast number 
of men at their disposal. 

If we decide to raise an Expeditionary 
Force of Half a Million — and we must 
do so unless we are willing to bet that 
Germany will be defeated this summer 
— the first thing is to begin intensive 
methods of teaching men how to lead 
them. And we will need at least 20,000 
officers for our first contingent. 

We have one great advantage over the 
British, our best men will not be sac- 
rificed in the first month of war. Every 
British soldier who fell in the Retreat 
from Mons was sorely missed when it 
came to drilling " Kitchener's Mob." 



MEN 107 

Beside our Regular Army, we have 
an appreciable number of reserve and 
militia officers and many others who have 
had some preparation for command. 
Most of our State Universities have 
rudimentary military training and among 
those of their alumni who have been cadet 
officers some good material can be found. 
The State Governors should also be 
called on to put in motion the machinery 
they use for selecting candidates for 
West Point, and to send in nominations 
for the emergency. An executive order 
has already directed the selection of 
promising " non-coms " from the Regu- 
lar Army — corporals and sergeants — 
for special work to fit them for commis- 
sions. Moreover since modern warfare 
tends like modern industry to specialisa- 
tion and requires a large number of ex- 
perts, it would be possible to take direct 
from our industrial life men who are tech- 
nicians rather than soldiers, for command 
in special service corps. A captain in 



108 MOBILISING 

an Aviation unit, for instance, has little 
need of knowing infantry drill regula- 
tions. 

All these possible sources should be 
used intensively and intelligently. 
Within a couple of months we should 
have at least 30,000 men in the Officers' 
Training Corps. 

One very obvious thing to do is to get 
expert advice from our friends. The Ca- 
nadians have had actual experience in 
training volunteers. A large part in our 
drill courses should be directed by men 
who have been through the mill. None 
of our officers have more than a theoretic 
knowledge of " bombing," but the Cana- 
dians could lend us plenty of wounded 
men to teach us the tricks of that trade. 
The French are the best artillerists in the 
world and our service would profit greatly 
from French instruction. 

And some of our own men, already 
schooled in theory, could at once be sent 
abroad for practice. A unit might be 
organised from the two upper classes at 



MEN 109 

West Point. They could rejoin our 
Army when it was ready to take the field, 
and their actual experience of warfare 
would be of immense value to our green 
troops. 

But every effort to raise men should 
be postponed until the shortage in officers 
is overcome. If, for instance, it is esti- 
mated that it takes six months to break 
in enlisted men and nine months to qual- 
ify for a commission, the men should not 
be taken from industry till the Officers' 
Training Corps have had three months 
start. Our General Staff knows how 
many Lieutenants and Captains and Ma- 
jors we will need and how long it will 
take to produce them, and it is on that 
basis that a date should be set for calling 
the men to the colors. 



These more immediate things attended 
to, we must take up the question of how 
to raise men for the new Army. Here we 



110 MOBILISING 

are at once in for a bitter discussion be- 
tween the Conscriptionists and the parti- 
sans of Volunteer Service. Either sys- 
tem would give us more men than we 
could at present officer. But the prob- 
lem we now have to face is an emergency 
problem. Actually at war, we have no 
time to argue the matter out. It is not 
a solution for all time which we are now 
seeking — but an immediate programme 
to meet an immediate need. 

Extreme militarists and extreme demo- 
crats, Von Bernhardi and Jaures, were 
agreed in favoring universal service. 
And if it is admitted that a large military 
establishment is necessary, Liberals, So- 
cialists, Labor organisations the world 
over prefer a Citizens' Army. Opposi- 
tion to Universal Military Service in the 
United States has been based on the belief 
that we did not need a large army. But 
our fundamental laws have always rec- 
ognised the obligation of all citizens to 
rally for national defence. The Presi- 
dent already has the right to " draft " 



MEN 111 

us in a crisis. So the Conscription laws 
now under consideration deal only with 
the detailed application of a long ac- 
cepted principle. 

But a system of Universal Military 
Service takes time to mature. We would 
not derive full benefit from it for a decade 
at least. And now we are not so much 
interested in a permament policy of Na- 
tional Defence, as concerned with the 
speedy development of a strong offence. 
The question before us is, how to bring 
the greatest pressure to bear on Germany 
immediately. And even our military men 
will admit that Conscription has its draw- 
backs as an emergency measure. Volun- 
teering brings quicker results and, for a 
relatively small Army, has the advantage 
of taking first those who are most ready 
and free to go. To call out the " class," 
who have just reached military age, 
would be to neglect all the older trained, 
and half trained men, of the militia. Ob- 
viously that is unwise when we want an 
Army quickly. 



112 MOBILISING 

Lack of officers will make it impossible 
for us to put more than half a million 
men in the field by 1918. We can raise 
that force by voluntary enlistment with 
little disturbance to our industrial life 
and no permanent change in national 
policy. 

If a large Army is proved to be nec- 
essary by events, there is little dispute 
that Universal Service is the only demo- 
cratic way to recruit it. But there is 
grave and sincere difference of opinion as 
to whether we will need a large and per- 
manent Military force. If this War — 
as so many of us hope — is to result in a 
Peace League of the Nations, if the ideal 
which Mr. Wilson has set before us is 
even approximated, we will have no need 
of the largest Army in the world. And 
that is what the Swiss system of Military 
Service means for us — Ten Million 
trained soldiers. 

Many of us who are passionately per- 
suaded that we must now throw all our 
energy into the struggle to free Europe 



MEN 113 

from the Menace of Militarism feel that 
this moment is peculiarly ill chosen to 
begin to arm ourselves beyond the imme- 
diate need. 

Never in the history of the world has 
there been better hope for some form of 
International Federation which will re- 
duce Military establishments to police 
needs. It is not only the sentimental re- 
action from the horrors of this war, but 
the appalling financial burdens already 
fastened on Europe. There is a great 
element of our people, intensely patriotic 
in this crisis, fired by a willingness to 
meet any sacrifice in this war, who yet 
believe in a peace to come. 

We may be forced to continue and 
intensify our armament, but as yet the 
hope for a better future is strong, the 
need is not yet obvious. Let us therefore 
avoid dissension by leaving this debate 
to the events. Let us not use the tem- 
porary crisis of this war as a pretext 
for deciding on policies for a dim and 
uncertain future. 



114 MOBILISING 

Now we face an emergency. And in 
the immediate crisis volunteering would 
probably do as well as conscription, for 
if the men did not come forward quickly 
we would have to resort to " drafts." 
But the organisation of Universal Serv- 
ice takes time — and we want the Half 
Million men as quickly as possible. 

And while it is quite probable that we 
may not need more than a Half Million 
— and even possible that we may not use 
them — there is always the chance that 
we may need very many more. 

It is a chance which — even if it is only 
an off chance — we must at once prepare 
to meet. And we will have to resort to 
Universal Service if it proves neces- 
sary to raise more than a First Contin- 
gent. The preliminary plans for this 
larger structure should be begun at once. 

The first step is a military and in- 
dustrial census. One or two of the 
States have already undertaken such 
work, but it would be very much better 



MEN 115 

to centralise it under the already trained 
Census Bureau at Washington. Every 
resident of the United States over 16 
should be required to register and should 
be given an Identity Book. There 
should be recorded: date and place of 
birth, nationality, date of naturalisa- 
tion, mail address, trade, present occupa- 
tion and previous military service. The 
material so collected would be digested 
by the Census Bureau. We would know 
how many men are 19 this year, how 
many reached military age in 1891, and 
so forth; how many are unemployed; 
how many men are doing work where 
women could be substituted ; how many 
women are available for munition work; 
how many are engaged in vital indus- 
tries, which must not be weakened; how 
many skilled mechanics, who are now at 
work on sewing machines, could be trans- 
ferred to arsenals. 

Such Census work, if it had been un- 
dertaken in England in the first months 
of the war would have been of immense 



116 MOBILISING 

value. They did not think the war 
would last so long. And when at length 
they undertook this work, it was done 
by unskilled, volunteer census-takers, 
hurriedly and ineffectually. 

So without interfering with the work 
of intensifying our munition output 
or our ship-building programme, without 
interfering with the organisation of 
the Volunteer Expeditionary Force, this 
work of taking a census of man-power 
should be begun at once. It is not safe 
to bet that the War will be over this 
summer and such knowledge as this cen- 
sus would give us must be the foundation 
for any further degree of mobilisation we 
may have forced upon us. 



In France there was some excuse for 
rushing the wrong men to the front. 
They thought they needed all the soldiers 
they could get. But this precipitation 
soon proved to have been a costly mis- 
take. 



MEN 117 

Here is a case in point. Some re- 
search surgeons sent to France by the 
Rockefeller Institute wanted to experi- 
ment on a new disinfectant for wounds 
and the French Government gave them a 
hotel in Compiegne for their hospital. 
Now these scientists were very expert in 
laboratory methods but they had no ex- 
perience in the housekeeping side of hos- 
pital management. They did not know 
how to run a laundry, they were not 
cooks and had no large experience in 
marketing. And their work at first was 
very seriously handicapped by difficulty 
over such details. But at last it occurred 
to one of them that this hotel, before it 
was requisitioned by the Government, 
must have had a manager. After some 
inquiries they discovered that the man 
was a common soldier in a regiment in 
the Argonne. With considerable trou- 
ble, and after tearing up much red 
tape, they had him sent back to Com- 
piegne. And their worries were over. 
He brought order out of confusion in 



118 MOBILISING 

twenty-four hours, and the wounded 
soldiers who only the day before had 
suffered much needless misery were now 
vastly more comfortable. 

The same situation existed in almost 
every hospital in France. Hotels had 
been requisitioned, but the men who knew 
how to run them efficiently were — 
if they had not already fallen — " some- 
where " at the front. But if the French 
once see a mistake they are quick to 
remedy it. And the improvement in 
the hospital at Compiegne was so 
marked that a general order was sent 
out calling home men who knew how to 
manage the domestic economy of hos- 
pitals. 

And in these two and a half years of 
war the same thing has been repeated 
over and over again. Men with special 
capacity for some vitally important job 
at home have been wasted in the training 
camps and in the trenches. The British 
now are sorting out their coal miners 
and sending them home. One group of 



MEN 119 

French specialists after another has been 
demobilised. And all this means need- 
less dislocation — sheer waste. 

Let us profit by this experience. We 
can trust to luck and individual patriot- 
ism for the first Half Million. But if 
we need more than that we will have to 
choose them with care. 



CHAPTER VI 

A PROGRAMME 

OUR Government has had more than 
two years to watch the great de- 
mocracies of Europe struggling with the 
problems of mobilisation. And bearing 
these lessons in mind we have a right to 
demand two things : 

A CLEAR CALL TO ARMS. There 
must be a comprehensible, sincere and in- 
spiring statement of why we are asked to 
fight. The issue must be put simply and 
concisely, in terms w r hich will reach all 
our people. The issue must be put hon- 
estly. If there are good reasons for us 
to fight, the more completely the Admin- 
istration takes us into its confidence the 
better. And to be inspiring, the Call to 
120 



A PROGRAMME 121 

Arms must be infused with the passion- 
ate idealism of Democracy. 

It must be made clear that we are fight- 
ing neither for our own aggrandisement 
nor to further the ambitions of any na- 
tion against another. There must be 
guarantees that our war is being waged 
neither for the greater profit of the mu- 
nition makers, nor to fasten a permanent 
militarism upon us. Only on a platform 
of broad human rights, only with Just 
Peace for the World set as a goal, can 
the whole nation be rallied. 

Unless the spirit of our people can be 
thoroughly mobilised our warfare will be 
petty and degrading. 

A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN OF 
ACTION. The Will to Win will weaken 
in idleness. Mobilisation is activity — 
tense, determined, sustained activity. 
There should therefore be published at 
once — and some one has been remiss if 
it is not ready — a detailed plan of mo- 
bilisation. 



122 MOBILISING 

First of all this plan should answer for 
every man and woman in our land the 
question : " What can I do ? " Every 
one of us, in one way or another, should 
contribute something to the national ef- 
fort. And we have a right to expect 
that the Government shall direct our 
willingness to serve into fruitful chan- 
nels. Those of us who are not shown 
something to do will be getting in the 
way. 

And secondly the Programme of Mo- 
bilisation should be so framed that we 
can check up its progress. For only 
under the constant pressure of Public 
Opinion will it be possible to keep the 
work from flagging. The most rapid 
progress will be made in those depart- 
ments in which we are most keenly inter- 
ested. Graft and laziness and red-tape 
obstructionism — all the ills of bu- 
reaucracy — flourish on public indiffer- 
ence. We want our experts to tell us 
what is needed and what to look for in 
the way of fulfilment. And if our hopes 



A PROGRAMME 123 

are deceived, we want to know the reason 
why. We have a right to expect: 



Within One Week after the outbreak 
of hostilities: 

1. That the Navy is at work. 

2. That our ship-yards are busy on a 

coherent, co-ordinated programme 
of construction. Battleships, sub- 
marines, sub-chasers, freight-ships 
and transports. 

3. That our financial resources are mo- 

bilised, that the credit of the na- 
tions fighting with us against Ger- 
many is re-established on the par 
exchange, and that we, as a nation, 
have ceased to make profit out of 
the needs of our Comrades already 
in arms. 

4. That plans have been matured for 

the mobilisation of Capitalists, 
Technicians and Wage Workers 
for increased production in all war 
industries, and that the whole en- 



l?A MOBILISING 

terprise of munition making has 
been put on a basis of fair wages 
and fair profits. 

Within Three Months: 

1. That an Emergency War Cabinet has 
been created, which will inspire 
national confidence by the re- 
nowned honesty and efficiency of its 
members, and that majorities have 
been organised in both Houses of 
Congress, representing the National 
Unity in the face of this emer- 
gency — not a coalition of the two 
old parties, but the coalescence of 
all patriots, a crystallisation of the 
National Will to Win. 

2. That our munition output has doubled 
and is steadily increasing, and that 
the problems of distribution and 
transportation of supplies has been 
worked out. 

o. That our Army Engineers and the 
civilian staff they trained at Pan- 



A PROGRAMME 125 

ama are at work on the Trans-Si- 
berian Railroad or on similar un- 
dertakings abroad. 

4. That our school camps for the inten- 

sive training of officers are in full 
swing, that a course of instruction 
based on the experience of this 
war has been worked out, and that 
peace time red tape and seniority 
rules in the high command have 
been replaced by promotion regu- 
lations based on ability, so that 
every private soldier carries a 
general's epaulettes in his knap- 
sack. 

5. That quarters and training facilities 

have been arranged for the first 
Half Million volunteers, the re- 
cruiting started and the date when 
the men will be called to the colors 
announced. 

6. That the census work, which must be 

the basis of any future conscrip- 
tion, is under way. 



126 MOBILISING 

Within One Year : 

1. That 500,000 men are trained, 

equipped and officered and that 
transports are ready for them, 

2. That plans are perfected for the 

training of officers and the recruit- 
ment of our Army by the just and 
democratic method of conscription, 
up to whatever degree of mobilisa- 
tion shall prove necessary. 



At the end of the first year of war we 
will have a right to expect that a good 
beginning has been made, that the enemy 
has begun to feel the pressure of our in- 
tervention and that all the preliminary 
plans are laid to go as far in arming as 
any one cares to force us. 

And we have a right to demand that 
the Government's programme shall show 
that the lessons of the European War 
have been studied, and that the now ob- 
vious blunders, which retarded mobilisa- 
tion in France and Britain, are to be 



A PROGRAMME 127 

avoided. We do not want our thinking 
befogged by unnecessary limitation of 
free discussion by an arbitrary censor. 
We ought not to stumble into the 
Short War Fallacy. We should avoid 
all friction with our Comrades in Arms 
due to ambiguity in the definition of our 
war aims. Our warfare must not be 
interrupted by justified strikes in the 
munition industries. And we do not 
want to have our enthusiasm for a War 
of Liberation dampened by an even ap- 
parent triumph of the anti-democratic 
forces at home. 

Above all we have a right and duty 
to demand that the Government's pro- 
gramme of mobilisation shall be free 
from bluff. 

" Bluff " is an American word. The 
Germans, while themselves given to bluff- 
ing, are disposed to call. They called 
the bluff at Gallipoli. They called the 
bluff at Saloniki. They called the Rou- 
manian bluff. And now they will not be 
the least bit frightened by Mr. Bryan's 



128 MOBILISING 

idea of a million patriots springing to 
arms over night. They are afraid neither 
of pitch-forks nor bare fists. What- 
ever we may announce, they will force a 
show-down. 

And it is equally important not to 
bluff on account of our Comrades in 
Arms. This War is — whether we like 
it or not — making us a member of the 
World Council. We have a reputation 
of Spread Eagle bombast to live down. 
And it will be very much better for us to 
perform more than we promise than to 
fall below the expectations we raise. 

Let us harness the cart of our aspira- 
tions to the stars, but keep our promises 
down to earth. The Government's pro- 
gramme should be modest, realisable — 
sober. 

That many details of this programme 
may be unwise, I would be the first to ad- 
mit. But that some such programme 
of energy, of action, is necessary, can- 
not be disputed by any one who is not 



A PROGRAMME 129 

willing to bet everything on the chance 
that the war will be over this summer. 

Roumania obviously thought the war 
was almost over — bet and lost. 

Why should we fall prey to this Short- 
War Fallacy? 

If — happily — the war ends quickly, 
it will not be hard for us to de-mobilise 
and go back to our jobs. But if the 
war lasts it will be utterly impossible for 
us to make up for lost time. 



THE END 



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